Chickening With My Professor Cuz Beef Is Against My Religion

By Aayushi Datta | Photo by Caterina Terizz

Okay, it’s officially the annual “Let’s Start a Fight with My Professor” time. Last semester was pretty “chill,” so I just knew that this semester, shit’s going to hit the fan.

After my first assignment, I almost had an existential crisis because I got a 74—a SEVENTY FOUR. My digestive system was having quite a hard time with this fact. My sleep schedule was giving heartbroken lover in a cheesy Hallmark movie. And mind you, I still hadn’t looked at what I got wrong.

So on Day 2 of moping, with the heaviest of hearts, I finally opened my assignment. And now I was just pissed. I knew it. My answers weren’t wrong. They just weren’t right. According to him, obviously.

One of the comments read, “Interesting approach, but not quite what I was looking for.” Excuse me? I thought we were in higher education, where critical thinking is encouraged? Apparently, I was supposed to telepathically extract the exact wording from his brain and regurgitate it onto the page.

So I sat and I wrote a long email about why and how I should be given a few points back. I was going to fight this to the very end. I poured my soul into that email. Carefully crafted arguments, a respectful yet firm tone, a little sprinkle of academic gaslighting—just enough to make him doubt his own grading.

Let’s not forget that I told him that he was wrong and I was right in the politest way possible. It was an art form, so my email should be saved, kept, and sold for a billion dollars in the future.  I hit send and waited, feeling like a lawyer who had just delivered their closing argument in a high-stakes courtroom drama.

Hours passed. Then a day. Then another.

Radio silence.

My email was sitting in his inbox like an unread message from an ex he swore he was over. The disrespect. The audacity. The nerve.

Fun Fact: my professor is obsessed with love lives. This man could talk about any topic and just randomly make it about romance. He once started to list things people are into in a relationship and said, “Some people want something kinky.” I will never recover from that. And yet, here I was, trying to get a response from him, and he was treating me like a bad Tinder match.

Finally, after what felt like a lifetime, a response.

"Happy to discuss during office hours."

Oh, it’s like that? Bet.

So now, I’m sitting outside his office, rehearsing my argument like I’m about to present a TED Talk on why I deserve justice. I have receipts, and by that, I mean screenshots. I have backup arguments prepared if he tries to weasel his way out.

The door opens. He looks at me. I look at him. It’s a duel. An intellectual showdown. A battle of unrelenting academic pettiness.

“Come in,” he says.

I step inside, ready to chicken.

Dance.