Hi Matt, thanks for another video. How's the book coming along? :) When I am writing essays for my course (BA Classical Studies and English Literature) I always feel torn between arguing what I think will best showcase my comprehension of the course materials, or doing something more original and challenging. I feel my tutors look for certain 'expected answers', which dissuades me from being more innovative. (Some past marks do suggest this is indeed the case, it's not entirely imagined). Assuming at my institution I am indeed marked higher for staying within certain expected boundaries of answer, should I do that for the sake of my grade, or could it be detrimental to my skills in the long-term? Will I teach myself to follow the crowd by doing so, and find it harder to re-capture my individual streak later? I so want to write more original essays but am not confident I'm rewarded for doing so.
It's a great question. I think you really need to talk to your tutors and find out what they would be looking for from exceptional work. I suspect that they are looking for you to hit certain notes, but would be receptive to you then expanding the conversation into fresh and innovative avenues. In other words, it's a bit of a mixture of what you've described. We do need to demonstrate our knowledge of core subject materials, but can then start to contribute new ideas having shown we know the fundamentals.
Thank you matt. It's gonna help a lot. My question is how can one risk trials and failures when we get just one yr, going for our master's, especially being international students having no idea how things r done there?
Great question. You just have to talk more to your tutors. I struggled on my masters year, for precisely those reasons. I made it, but I should have spoken to my tutors more often about what they wanted.
