Day 5

Discussion boards. No longer can you waste time handing in papers to the professor, but now you must post them on Discussion Boards. Where everyone else can see what you've written.

Back in the day, when I was a 17-year-old freshman in college, I'll admit it. I was not always the best student in the class. And I enjoyed the anonymity of being able to hand in my paper, hiding it among the other attempts.

Now, I have to post it on a board. And while I am not ashamed of my poor work, I am very self-conscious that I am trying too hard to get an "A."

We only had to write three paragraphs in response to a seminar we attended. I posted five. There should be an introductory and closing paragraph, right? And after posting said response, we had to post on three other people's prose. That means that we were forced to read what the other students had written. Anonymity be damned.

Fast forward to the next morning when we met again for class. The college accidentally locked us out of our room, so we students were congregating in the hall and chatting. I was feeling pretty cool and hip until one young student asked me, "Are you the one who wrote so much?"

As my visions of being the new it girl faded, I realized that I paid for school this time around. No scholarships, student aid or parents to the rescue. So if I want to write five paragraphs and look like the teacher's pet - Oh well. I just hope I get a good grade!