Dear Least Favorite Professor,

First of all, I don't hate you. Actually, allow me to rephrase that. I thought I hated you, but I no longer feel that way. My resentment turned into gratitude; my bitterness into appreciation.

In all my 12 years of public schooling, I never had one teacher I even slightly disliked (okay, that's probably not true, but you get my drift). They were all good; caring, kind, supportive, motivating and not one bit harsh. When they criticized my work, they did so in a constructive way and offered me tips on how to improve. They had no problem with going over something one, two, even three more times despite just teaching an entire class period on it. That became my normal. It was nice.

Then I went to college and everything changed. The professors still were motivating, but in a different way. They give you the tools to succeed, but it's ultimately up to you what you do with them. It's your responsibility to put in the effort and unlike high school, you need to reach out to your professors if you struggling in class. Not all of them are available before or after class, so that means taking time out of your own schedule to go to their office hours. More weight is now put on you. The majority of work is done outside the classroom rather than during class. They are willing to help you, but only if you're willing to put in the time and effort. I've been pretty fortunate my last three semesters of college because my professors have been kind and truly goes the extra mile to ensure that everyone succeeds.

Then, I had encountered yet another wake-up call -- a mean professor. And when I tell you she was mean, she was mean. She would actually say to students and I quote, "If you want to succeed in this class, you need to put effort into it which you obviously aren't doing." She would only go over material once and if we didn't understand it, we needed to make time to speak to her during her office hours. If our work wasn't up to her standards, she would say so and didn't sugarcoat anything either. If we didn't follow the rubric exactly, points would be deducted and we would be penalized for it. She told our class that we were lazy and we weren't trying hard enough. It was us that needed to go the extra mile She was hard on us, but there was actually a very good reason for it -- she was preparing us for the real world. She was harsh and perhaps maybe a bit too brutally honest, but hey; that's the real world. And that's why students, myself included, didn't like her; because she didn't let us take any shortcuts. She didn't spoon feed us because that's not how the real world operates. You need to work your butt off and dedicate hours of blood, sweat and tears into one project in order to prove yourself. Nothing is handed to you on a silver plater.

Come to think of it, maybe she wasn't mean; just brutally honest. Brutally honest isn't always synonymous with mean. She was actually doing us a favor and teaching us a valuable life lesson. Despite it being a Graphic Design class, I put more hours into that class than even ones for my major and I also learned more from that class than all the others.

So, thank you; thank you for teaching me the value of good work ethic. As harsh as you were, you helped prepare me for the road ahead and for that, I am grateful.