Since I was a kid, I've wanted to write - I love writing, and I've been told I'm good at it. It's the one thing I came to university to do, and to learn more about, and I actually quite dislike standard English Literature and analysing since I came to uni. I'm now in my second year, studying English Literature and Japanese (I took a creative writing course in my first year and got a borderline first on it). I honestly think I'm quite good at it, however subjective a subject it is, and in seminar I've rarely been criticised.
I was completely shocked this morning to get a very bad mark on my second year Creative Writing course. I had to write a short story and a poem, and I knew I wouldn't do as well on the short story and predicted myself a 60-65 for it, and more for the poem. (don't know if all degrees are the same, but 50 is the 3/2:2 boundary, 60 is the 2.2/2.1 boundary, 70 is the 2.1/1st boundary) I received a mark of 71 for my research project, but a 51 on my creative writing exam (a 61 overall). What's more, I got 50 for my story and a 52 on my poem - a mark I am really shocked and saddened to receive, as I thought my poem was good and have had no indication so far by my tutors that I'd receive less than 65. I'm not sure if I was marked badly on the poem because I was marked badly on the short story, or if I'm actually just a terrible writer.
(I have been averaging a 68/70 on every essay and assignment so far, and my lowest mark ever has been a 64)
What I guess I'm asking here is what experience have you English people had with creative writing courses? Do you find that you get great marks all the time, or that sometimes it completely knocks you for six?
I was going to do a creative writing course and dissertation in my third year, but now I have absolutely no desire to do this and have to do some serious rethinking on what modules I'm actually going to take now. Stupid, but I'd rather get a 1st doing topics I absolutely hate than a borderline 2:2/3rd on creative writing.
(Also it's my birthday, which makes all this much more depressing! Thankfully I'm not the only one to get bad marks on the exam - but no one got as bad as I did
)
I hope this doesn't sound like I'm conceited. I just feel like this mark is out of the blue, and so I wanted to know whether anyone else had felt this way in a creative writing course.