So What is the Point, Again?

Saturday night around 9:00 pm I sat down to write a paper about how my company is organized as it relates to technology, human resources, finances, physical assets, or something else in 1050-1200 words. The paper was due by midnight, and a classmate pointed out that this paper was worth 15 points, not 5 like the others we'd turned in previously.

So I racked my brain trying to figure out what I'm going to put into this paper. At around 10:30, I submitted somewhere around 987 words of a convoluted mess. I thought there was no way I was going to get a decent grade on this paper, 10 points at best. That was ok, at least it was something, and I was holding a pretty steady A for the class, so missing a few points because I dropped the ball wasn't a big deal to me.

Now, I have always excelled at school. Well, almost always. The first time I failed a class ever, I quit going to school. I couldn't handle the fact that I got less than a C, and I'd only ever had 2 Cs as final grades in all my fifteen years of learning (K-college). When I finally did go back to college, not only did I have a 3.89/4.0 GPA, I was at the top of my class for my major and was named Honor Student for one of the two programs I was in. I don't know how to not do well at school. It hurts to not put 110% effort in.

So, as I said, Saturday I really struggled with this assignment. I had put it off until the last possible minute because I had no idea what to write about. I didn't ask my boss for input to help push me along, and I had very poor examples to support my statements. I certainly thought it was horrible.

Then I got my grades back last night. 14.6 out of 15 points. 0.2 of that was because I forgot to include a cover sheet. Even the automagic grammar/spelling checker didn't have that many issues, and most of those it did have weren't valid (there are just some things computers do not understand).

Soo.. I didn't try, I scrambled at the last minute, and didn't support my topic well. And still got an A? It really makes me wonder why I put the effort in at all. This was actually a better grade than I had received on previous papers that were better written.

I just don't understand.