I’m concerned about Prof. Sergi’s opinion of me—I just don’t want Prof. Sergi to think less of me…

I’m always surprised at the number of confessional emails I get from students — real, sincere, and sometimes seriously intense apologies that deploy self-inflicted guilt and shame (or, worse than that, a cut-and-paste boilerplate rehearsal of guilt and shame), at some level concerned with what I, as a person, think of the student, as a person.

“I was unprepared and so I skipped class and that’s my fault and I’m ashamed and accept responsibility.”

“My train just stopped—I know that doesn’t affect your absence policy or anything, but I just wanted you to know, because I care about this class and I am dedicated and I need for you to know that—”

“I never handed in my final paper—I loved your class, but I just screwed up. I’m so very sorry. I meant no disrespect to you.”

My answer? Hey: we’re cool. No worries.

Sure, your professor is an authority who is continually in the process of evaluating your work. It is easy to confuse your professor’s professional opinion of your work with the professor’s personal opinion of you. (That tendency to take things personally is made worse by the dangerous chronic perfectionism that’s choking North American undergraduate studies right now.)

To be clear, then: Your choices about your education are your own. I would never judge you personally for those choices. My job is to guide you toward your educational goals, not to deal in guilt or shame.

For one thing, I am in no position to judge. I was an irresponsible, chronically late, overstressed and absentminded and sometimes outright dishonest undergraduate for most of my time at university. Ask me and I’ll happily tell you some ridiculous and hopeless-seeming stories, one of which is included in my video lecture on time management and process. (At a reunion some years ago, an old friend’s dad actually said, “You turned out to be a university professor? None of us would have seen that coming.”)

As for you, then, you have no idea, even at your worst, what impressive things you’ll be capable of. There are students in my classes right now who are making bad choices, or lazy choices, or who are barely keeping it together. That doesn’t mean these people are bad students, frauds, undeserving, wastes of time or money, etc. They are students with every right to be here, and they’re very likely, in the end, going to give way more to and get way more out of university.

I’ll work with you as far as you do the work expected of you; to the degree that you don’t, then I won’t — and that’s fine too. As a professor, it is part of my job to accurately evaluate classwork—I am a representative of the university, and the university’s credit is only meaningful to the degree that I uphold its standards and my own. And I uphold those standards rigorously. But that’s my job. At the end of the day, I think no less of any student—I’ve been there, and even if I hadn’t, it simply isn’t a matter of personal judgment. So I’ll hear you out if you need to be heard out, but you should know from the beginning that the only thing I am ever evaluating is your work for my class, not you.

A final note: stress is harmful to your health and often very counteractive to your education. Please: never sacrifice sleep for schoolwork, and try to do what you can to be happy during your time at university. It’s more important than it seems.