Yesterday in a seminar class, we devoted the class time to our term papers. Each student took a few minutes to present their topic, and got feedback from the faculty, of whom there are 3, and the other 9 students. Mine went well; I got compliments on the development of my topic, and in general I feel fine. Another kid, and this post is really about him, blew my mind. He wanted to analyze the use of Tillich's treatment of the concepts of eros and agape, and the subsequent criticism of Tillich in feminist tradition. Don't worry if you're not up on that stuff; you're not alone.
He got Tillich wrong. He actually was incorrect about what Tillich said. Then, he got all three of the feminists he dealt with wrong. In short, every aspect of his paper was wrong, and everyone in the room told him so. Faculty, students, all of us told him that he had misread every source for his paper.
I felt a little ballsy because I had written 10 pages of mine before presenting the topic to the class, but I figured I could fix it if I needed to. My fellow student had already completed his paper, and handed it in. The professor he handed it to said, "Oh, wow, you're handing that in already? You have another week to make revisions. Are you sure you want to do this?" His reply was just spectacular. "Yep, I have no intention of making any changes." I just had to mention this on the blog because it's probably the dumbest thing I've seen someone do in my time at school, including undergrad and high school. We shredded that paper, and he had a week to fix it. Instead, he insisted that he was right, even though the people who will grade the paper disagree, and arrogantly handed it in. The same kid added a year onto his M.A. program because he didn't get in to any of the schools he applied to for a Ph.D.. Two of his academic references teach the class I've been talking about. It's not looking good for him.
I know this post sounds trite and pompous, but I still can't believe that this actually happened, and I actually think it's funny. 25 more pages of writing and I'm out of here.