next »

[minorleaguer]

As some of you may remember, I haven't exactly been the rising star of my graduate coursework.  It isn't as though I've been doing terribly, but my papers get the "Nice work, here is what you can improve" comments rather than the "This is outstanding!!!!!11" comments that are given to some other members of my cohort.  I'm a smallish to medium size fish in a very large pond filled mostly with Sperm Whales.   

I worked very hard this summer to "catch up".  I read books.  I talked to people about writing.  I worked on becoming more professional (sometimes).  I'm starting to think this has all paid off.  I got my first grade back for the term . . . an A+!  This is my first A+ on anything.  Ever.  Both my undergrad and high school were on a 4.0 scale, so it never really crossed my mind that this was possible.  I feel like I've just been given a gold star in elementary school (which never really happened either). 

Anyway, I was excited, and wanted to share, have a drink for me this evening.  Good luck at the end of the term!

[contemporary_]

Congratulations on being at the head on the class.   Cheers.

Ask how the work can be developed or revised for publication.

[figee]

Wheeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!

Great news.  Congratulations.  Now you can sit back in the glow for a while, before the next grade comes in.

[sleepdeprived]

I remember that feeling.  It may sound cliche, but I really did keep refreshing the registrar's page because I was certain it was a typo and the prof would come along and "correct" it to a B.  Good job!

[minorleaguer]

Wheeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!

Great news.  Congratulations.  Now you can sit back in the glow for a while, before the next grade comes in.

When the next grade comes in as something less sexy, I will be pulled down back down to earth.  For now, a certain beer from Europe's largest brewery is calling.

[dr_prephd]

Congrats to you!

I have been obsessively refreshing blackboard in the hopes that our grades have been posted. Alas, they have not.

I will certainly have a beer for you tonight; one from America's oldest brewery.

[soprano]

Congratulations!!!!!!!  Sounds like all of your hard work has paid off.

[snowbound]

As Contemporary said--Revise it for publication! 

Set aside time for the revision this summer.  Right now (and for a few months), your research will be bang up-to-date, your ideas have not been scooped by another scholar, and your professor is enthusiastic about your paper and has it fresh in his/her memory.  Talk to your professor soon about how to take the paper to the next level and make it a good publishable article, rather than a great student paper (an A+ suggests you are already most of the way there).

No search committee will be interested in the grade you got on a paper.  They'll care about the article you got published. So go for it!

[dr_prephd]

Grades were posted for me on Friday. I am so glad that I got them before break, or I would have been a nervous wreck. Two As, as I expected; but I needed to see it in black and white.

It feels good!