As students, we often find ourselves in situations where one of our professors assigns a paper or project that we do not completely understand how to do. Not too long ago, I found myself in a similar situation and made a discovery that turned my world upside down.

I was assigned a paper that had three primary sources (two short stories and a novel) and seven secondary sources (peer-reviewed articles), and I had absolutely no clue how to accomplish something that would eventually turn out to be well over three thousand words.

So, I took my best shot at it. I read through what seemed like 1000 journal articles, re-read my primary texts and tried to start writing. As I began the writing process, nothing I was writing seemed to make sense.

Every word I wrote seemed to make the paper make less and less sense. It eventually came to the point where I was certain that I had no idea what I was doing and that there was no way I was going to do well on this paper.

As the panic, anxiety, self-doubt, immediate regret of all past decisions, etc., set in, I had an idea. “Why don’t I just go talk to my teacher?” I said to myself. Shortly after having this though, I realized the absurdity of it.

“Why would I go talk to the monster who assigned me this terrible paper? It is apparent that they just assigned this paper so that we would be miserable and cry ourselves to sleep every night. After all, they did it when they were in school, so why shouldn’t we have to?”

Eventually, I realized that I just was not going to be able to do a good job without seeking the help of my professor. So, I decided that I would go meet with the person who was so obviously set on making my life miserable with these ridiculously hard assignments.

I checked Canvas for office hours, printed off my rough draft and headed toward my professor’s office. Secretly, I hoped they would not be in their office so I could console myself with having had done my best to go speak with them.

However, they were there, so I was forced to face my fears and anxieties and speak with them about my paper. I showed them my rough draft, spoke with them about my ideas and waited for a response.

After a few moments of consideration and thought, much to my surprise, they responded with suggestions and information that revolutionized the way I thought about that assignment and large papers as a whole.

As it turned out, my professor did not assign me that huge paper because they were some sort of sadistic individual who laughed themselves to sleep at the thought of their students crying in despair. The rumors proved to be untrue after all.

In reality, my professor assigned that paper in order to push me and my classmates to be better writers and researchers. It was a part of the teaching and learning process. Ever since then, when I am faced with a problem, or if I am confused or uncertain about an assignment, I simply go and speak with my professors.

Professors do not do what they do primarily for the money they make. They do it because they love whatever and whoever, (I guess unless you are one of the people who talks trash about them all the time) they are teaching, and they are genuinely concerned about their students. They are not monsters after all.