I joke that the universities I have attended likely put a note in my profile along the lines of: don’t tell Reagan she is wrong when she is clearly right, she will push until you return the points.

I just feel like I sometimes embody the woman in Luke 18:1-5 below:

“And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint; saying, There was in a city a judge, which feared not God, neither regarded man: and there was a widow in that city; and she came unto him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary. And he would not for a while: but afterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man; yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.”

In my college career, I have (successfully) fought to exceed the credit limit in a semester, take online classes to avoid a Nazi-like regime at James Madison during 2021, religiously exempt from college-required vaccines when I was never living on campus, and restore points with nearly any professor that takes them away points when I was correct in the first place. The moral of the story, I guess, is that I don’t like being told I can’t do something or that I am unjustly wrong.

But that doesn’t mean that I will fight any instance of this. This summer semester, I took two courses, with the same professor. I was failing one and succeeding in the other. I just barely had a B in Research Mentorship (anything below a B in graduate school they count as failing), but got an A in Health Risk Management (and I didn’t even have the textbook).

I was aggravated by the grading scheme for Research Mentorship. The rubric used for every assignment was unjust, in my opinion. Exceeding expectations would get you 100%. Meeting expectations would get you 90%. I do assignments to meet expectations, not exceed them. Exceeding expectations should get you extra credit – it should not be the only way that you have a chance to get full points. Additionally, how am I supposed to know what the professor would count as exceeding expectations? Often in the rubric, she’d say something like: good job including data, but you could include more. You gave me a page limit! There’s only so much I can do and I included the required data that you just acknowledged.

As much as I love to advocate for myself (and I’m sure every college I’ve attended has a note about it at this point), sometimes I don’t. Here are the questions I usually ask myself before deciding to start a conversation:

How Badly is it Affecting My Grade?

Am I really failing this course, or am I just losing a small percentage? When I took biochemistry in undergraduate, I took my first exam and got a 36%. I had never done so poorly, and I thought I understood the material. You can read more about my biochem story in this post, but after meeting with the professor and discussing it, I just found out I understood his questions differently than he intended them. He worked with me and would even let me get points back if I could explain what I missed and why and what the right answer was. He would sit there in his office and even rephrase the question for me. I went from a D to an A in that class. Figuring out how badly the issue will affect your grade is probably one of the most important things to decide before starting a conversation. If it is just a small amount, I am not sure it would be worth your time.

How Late is it in the Semester?

In this post, I talk about a professor who started having a conniption fit about my references in the last two weeks of the semester. She was upset that I used an article that was behind a paywall for her. I explained that I have credentials to at least four different institutions which can get me around different paywalls (also, information can come from the free abstract). She told me because it was behind a paywall, it was not a valid source as she could not verify it. I would have had ground to stand on for this scenario, and it was reducing my points on my assignments, as she was giving me nearly a zero for the references portion of the rubric. I did find a way around it by attaching a pdf of the article for her with my submissions (although that may have been sarcastic, it worked). If she had started this at the beginning of the semester (and I had been using this source at the beginning), I would have escalated it. Since there were only two weeks left, it would have taken too much effort and I didn’t feel it was worthwhile.

Am I Very Likely to Win this Argument if it Goes to Upper Leadership?

In my posts on how to argue with your professor, you want to make sure that you have ground to stand on if you need to bring in the dean or escalate it to the student support department. If you are not sure that you have a lot of ground to stand on, you may want to reconsider. You can, of course, still have a conversation with the professor, but if the professor or you decide to escalate the matter, do you have ground to stand on if the higher-ups come into the picture?

How Much Energy do I Have?

This is also one of the biggest questions I ask before deciding to start the conversation. It can take a lot of work to complain about a situation in your course. I have the steps outlined here, but it involves a lot of documentation, research, and patience when contacting your professor about these situations. This question was the largest factor in why I did not advocate for myself in the above scenario. The rubric was stupid, but I was still barely passing the course, I was unsure what higher-ups would say about it (although I believe I would have made a fair argument), but I just didn’t have the energy for it. I didn’t want to go through the whole process of fighting for my grade, and I think that’s an okay thing. It can take a lot of work when you start these discussions, and you need to be prepared. I wanted to enjoy my summer, and I didn’t want to spend weeks arguing with people to just get the next letter grade. I barely got a B, and I was okay with that. I did complain about it in my end of course survey, not that it did any good. I will have a post on tips about the end of course surveys at some point, now that I am a professor and have seen their side at two different institutions.

You can read the steps I usually take when I do choose to decide to start this argument, but I just wanted to admit that it’s alright to not always stand up for yourself. Sometimes you should choose the path that feels right – as long as your grade isn’t drastically impacted, keep some peace in your life and don’t start the argument.

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All Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, King James Version.