Pieces of BGSU

During the first day of one of my classes, I met my new instructor, who immediately surprised me because she pointed at me and said, “I am happy to have an international student in my class.” She wanted an international student to help provide a different perspective, but she soon made it clear that she would not take it easy on me just because I am an international student.

I remember one day, I came late to the class about three minutes late, and she told me to write my name on a sheet and, beside it, the word “late.” That way she could know I was late for the first time. At first, I was embarrassed and annoyed. However, I did not end up blaming her because she taught me an important lesson: respect the class time.

I learned another important lesson during one of the most important class sessions—the day of the first exam. After I finished my exam, I did not get the chance to review my answers because it was the end of the class time, but I had to turn in the answer sheet to her anyway. One week later, she returned the answers after she finished grading them. I found that one of my answers was wrong. Even though the only choices were A, B, and C, I choose D instead of C, and I tried to explain my mistake to her. Because I did not have enough time to review, I accidentally marked D (which was not even an acceptable choice) though I knew C was the right answer. However, she rejected my request, and she told me, “I do believe you, but I am not going to fix your mistake. This will benefit you in the future and encourage you to be more careful before you turn your exams and assignments in for any classes that you have.” I was not expecting that from her, but what she said was completely right.

Later, during the final exam day, she offered to allow me to finish the exam in her office if I did not finish it on time. However, I did not need the extra time thanks to the lesson I learned from the first exam: study harder and prepare more in order to finish the exam on time.