Hidden Mercy in Academics

Have you ever expressed a small frustration to someone and had it turn into a giant discussion that takes several turns and unearths feelings you never imagined could be involved? This happend to me yesterday when I displayed some anger regarding professors who grant extensions while penalizing anyone else who hands a paper in late.

Why does the person who asks for an extension and hands the paper in a week late not get penalized while the person who doesn't ask does? Some would answer that it is pretty simple, it's because they asked. I quickly realized that this wasn't the source of my frustration. After a pause I asked, "How does the student know to ask for an extension?" All professors hand out a syllabus at the beginning of the year stating the rules of the course, all of them stating the penalization for late papers. 99% percent of these syllabi also include the phrase that says no exceptions to late papers will be permitted without a doctors note verifying an illness. After reading this, why would anyone ask for an extension? The rules of the game have been stated. And yet some people, in what I consider a bit of a sneaky move, decide to ask the professor for an extension. What's worse, a seeminlgy growing amount of professors actually break the rules of the class written in the syllabus and grant them an extension.

It is here in the discussion that three curve balls were thrown at me. One, "Doesn't the professor have the right to decide how to run his course?" To this I say sure he does, and he lays out how the course will run in the syallbus. I do not believe he has the right to break these rules in secret in a closed door conversation with a student. Second curve ball, "Doesn't the professor have the right to show mercy?" Of course, but why does he show mercy to one student and not the other? Why is this mercy hidden? Why is there a syllabus that is handed out that says mercy will not be granted? It is not enough of a defence to say that the student who didn't ask for an extension is at fault for not asking, because they had no reason to ask. The question of extensions had already been addressed in the syllabus.

The last curve ball thrown at me was in relation to the mercy that we receive from God. "Don't we have to ask for this mercy in order to receive it?" I was asked. Of course. But only after it has been offered and made clear to us who we can ask for this mercy from. If God had given us a Bible that said, "You shall receive no mercy from me. You are all damned, don't come crying to me about it," would we be at fault for not asking for mercy anyway? Hells no. If God operated by different rules and by a different standard than the covenants (promises) he made with us then he would not be a god worth worshipping or following. Inconsistency like this would leave us better off creating another god.

The higher you go in academics the more you realize that it is a competition. And a competition that has different rules for everybody involved is not one that I or anybody else would want to compete in. If you were playing any other game in which in the middle of the game the rules were changed for the opposing team you would be furious. I now realize that this hidden mercy that is granted in secret, against the stated rules, infuriates me in the same way.