At Least There's No Playtest

Despite the earlier elation caused by a 98% score on my biology exam, and an un-blogged 100% on my first EMT exam, things are beginning to get a little more stressful as I'm nearing midterm. My psychology instructor has decided that rather than giving a midterm exam, he'd like a midterm paper on some aspect of psychology we've covered in the first half of the class. How many pages? I asked the same question. His reply was a succint, but less-than-informative, "As many as you need to adequately cover the material." Geh. He did mention he didn't want a 30-page report ("Don't do that to me," he said), but otherwise I have a very limited idea of how big, how in-depth, or how detailed this paper needs to be.

Having spent the last 5+ years writing full-time, I'm obviously not terribly concerned with the actual writing process. But I'm used to writing with a contract, an outline, some previous work to look at and say, "this is what it should look like." Without those things, I'm feeling a bit out of sorts while working on this project.

As part of PSYCH 111, I've had to turn in a weekly journal that reflects my thoughts and opinions on the material covered that week, but that's a far cry from a midterm paper. My instructor mentioned that "ambiguity" is part of the college process, and it makes me wonder if his vagueness in this assignment is, unto itself, a form of testing his students, simply to see what path they take or how they deal with the assignment.

Personally, I'd prefer a much more structured - and less ambiguous - approach to the midterm. But I'm not in charge.