During the last nine years, I squeezed guest teaching gigs in Tanzania, Germany, and China in-between my duties at Chico State. Each time I do this, I am impressed by the vibrancy of growing university systems abroad and the rapid expansion of higher education opportunities. Each country is pushing more of their students into post-secondary institutions. Indeed, there is a Europe-wide goal of having at least 40% of all 30-34 year olds graduating at the level of a US Bachelor’s degree by 2020 (The US and California have been stuck at 25-30% since about 1970). Each place I’ve visited also seeks to “internationalize” their curricula, by which they mean sending students abroad, receiving faculty and students from other countries, and offering classes in English. This is all very exciting for someone coming from moribund California where internationalization is viewed primarily in terms of “revenue generation,” in other words, a way to soak outsiders for the cost of running our universities, and not necessarily a value for its own sake.

Inevitably the rapid growth I saw abroad resulted in some nutty stuff—and you hear about it. My German colleagues complained about the pains of uncoordinated rapid growth, and the fact that expanding student bodies, do not keep up with faculty hires. Lack of coordination in student loan disbursements in Tanzania resulted in a student strike, tear gas in my house, and the mid-semester cancellation of my classes. In China and Germany, students bragged that their English skills are better than the faculty—as indeed they are as a result of improved foreign language instruction during the 1990s when they were in primary school. And the university I visited in China had a massive new library at the entrance to the university which I fear will become a digital-age white elephant.

In all three countries, students complained about the high cost of student fees/tuition, just like they do in California. It is just that the magnitude is different. In Germany students protested recent imposition of tuition at public universities which were briefly set at 500 Euros per semester (about $633), before being eliminated in most states. Perhaps the nuttiest thing occurred at a rapidly internationalizing university when I presented a class to one student (it was a great class!), due to a scheduling mistake on the part of a host overeager to offer an English language sociology course.

But then it is always back to California where we have real complaints. The tuition bills at CSU are about $7000 per year, $13,200 per year at UC, and even the Community Colleges run about $2000 for a full-time 30 unit load. California has declining student enrolments, faculty numbers which decline faster, and curricular offerings which go down even more quickly. Many public universities in the United States cut class times via various furlough programs. The United States (led by California) in the past led college completion rates for adults aged 30-34—but in recent years was surpassed by countries like Korea, Canada, Japan, and Ireland. This will put the United States at a competitive disadvantage in future world labor markets for decades to come, a fact that logically will lead to yet further decline.

On top of everything else, instead of encouraging the internationalization other countries seek, the United States discourages enrolment by international students with complicated student visa requirements and a reluctance to recognize foreign degrees. For example, my own students at the Chico State are discouraged by risk management concerns from CSU headquarters in Long Beach that ultimately drive up students costs for study abroad—with the result that our own efforts to “internationalize” our student bodies are restrained.  And woldn’t it be nice if our students could complain that their Spanish (or Chinese) skills are better than their faculty!  Somehow, this is not in the cards in a state where foreign language instruction is being cut back.  (Still there is some good news for CSU headquarters in Long Beach: we don’t need a new massive library like I saw in China, though it would be nice if Chico State’s browsing collections were maintained, and the supply of books—print or e-copies— kept up with the book reviews!)

In other words, I have seen the consequences of both rapid growth and institutional contraction. I’ll take the chaotic growth of Germany, China, and Tanzania over the institutional stagnation in California any day.

Ultimately, the rapid growth of public education abroad happens because governments in other countries value higher education in ways that California no longer does. And most importantly, taxpayers abroad are willing to pay for higher education. Hidden behind the student protests I observed in Tanzania and Germany, was a shared belief that the general public benefits from a well-educated population. The protests appealed effectively, albeit sometimes clumsily, to this value. This value was of course shared by Californians in the past—thus the rapid expansion of California’s higher education system by the grandparents of my students in the decades after World War II. Such benefits, of course, were reaped by me and my fellow baby boomers in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. The question for today’s baby boomers is whether they will be able to return the favor by supporting our own children in a way that the rest of the world does.

I got to spend some time with a friend recently that decided some time ago to restart her PhD work.  She is already ABD, but is starting the dissertation over from scratch.  My question was “Why?” She is a well-respected professional, and within the her field a PhD will likely be of limited benefit professionally compared to the mountain of work ahead of her, not to mention the expense involved.

In the course of the conversation I was reflecting on my own choice to not get a PhD and thinking that it might provide food for thought for a larger audience. Not to mention the pitfalls of getting to attached to getting one.

When I started my graduate work in anthropology, I had the same expectations as most people: I thought I would wind up teaching at a university or maybe in some kind of think tank. Rather than going directly into a PhD program (I already had a B.A and MS.Ed in other areas), I chose what was then a terminal master’s program at the University of South Carolina. I thought at the time, doing a MA first would enable me to get into a better PhD program, in reality I don’t think it makes a difference either way. Future graduate students should also take note USC now has a full-fledged PhD program that started several years after I finished my M.A.  Well, as time went by, my interests and goals evolved.  Not an unexpected thing to happen as you spend a couple of years learning about the in’s and out’s of a discipline. Looking back, I believe that one of the most significant course changes was when I decided that I was more interested in applied work rather than working in academia. I won’t mince words, once it got around the department that I was not planning on pursuing an academic path, it felt like I was pretty much dropped like a hot rock as far as most of the professors were concerned.  One professor [to remain nameless] didn’t mince words either, she told me flatly that any student that was not planning on a professional academic career as an anthropologist should not expect any interest on the part of the instructors. My thesis advisers promptly dropped any interest in my thesis work as well, and it shows. Before you think it was awful, I am talking about significant small moments in time that occurred during my grad work, not the entire school experience. I got an excellent education, I had some great instructors and I would go back to South Carolina again.  At that time, quite simply, applied anthropology as looked down on as well as only getting an MA. Things have become considerably more enlightened in the discipline overall since then.

Compounding the issue of being primarily interested in applied work, my research interests in two divergent areas were not seen as worthy of anthropology: One was the area of intentional violence. My graduate thesis was based on intensive research with a prison population, and that evolved into interest in two areas: terrorism on the one hand and serial homicide on that other. Both of which I was curious to see if they could be studied almost as a cultural language or the semiology of the acts. The second was in a totally different area; due to my long-standing technology interests (I had always put myself through school as a computer jock) I was becoming much more interested in the intersection of culture and technology. It turns out that the latter interest would serve me very well later in ways I never imagined.

But given all that, I STILL wanted that PhD.  Why?Well, as it has and had for so many others it became for me the difference between success and failure.  I was $150,000 in debt and looking at more, I had years of education behind me and more to go.  To me, getting those three little letters was the difference between being a legitimate scholarly person and a nobody.  I got so nutty about it that I wouldn’t even date someone that was not getting some advanced degree (That stupid arrogance likely cost me some excellent relationships.). A PhD was a ticket too studying the topics I wanted, a life of scholarship and (the applied part) once I got the ticket, I would be able to pursue applied endeavors at will.  Yes, I was indeed blind to how the life of a university professor really looks.

So what happened? Shatteringly, but in reality lucky for me in the long run, I did not get into my first two choices for a PhD program, but was accepted to the applied PhD program at the University of South Florida. Given my interests were then more fringe topics, there was no one there that was doing work even remotely related and I was concerned I would be suffering from a real lack of mentor-ship.  Also, the connections you make in your PhD program can be very important when job hunting, having dissertation advisers that can make introductions later was a concern.

Then, the proverbial last straws. I went to a AAA meeting and on the job board were four or five lonely looking position announcements for very low paying positions (as they usually are), seeking scholars of a few countries in Africa. The next factor was watching from a distance as the USC anthropology department was fielding applications for a new position. There were not dozens of applications – there were hundreds, and from people with long publishing histories, all from the top tier programs at the time.

I realized quickly after that I could not justify continuing on with more graduate school. The math was fairly stark: Endure additional crushing debt load, to take that fairly small chance that I might get job I want, at a salary that would barely cover my debt, rent and food, in an environment that I really didn’t like all that much.

Understand, I was never much for the publish or perish game, or the nasty politics that can emerge in academic departments, so I was ill suited to the profession anyway.  But that is not the reality I was thinking about at the time. I remember the moment I knew I was going to quit pursuing the quest for a PhD.  It was devastating.  I called up a friend of mine that had made the same choice after going ABD and bawled my eyes out.  “It has all been a complete waste,” I told her, “All the years, all the work, all the money has all been flushed down a toilet and I have nothing to show for it.” I don’t remember what she said to be honest.  I am sure it was supportive and reassuring and none of what I was thinking was true.

I can tell you this much: all of the thoughts I had about not getting my PhD equaling failure were and are utter bullshit. Why do I say that? Here is what happened once my head cleared, I got the emotional cobwebs out and started assess what I wanted to do.

I wanted to keep studying culture, I wanted to be involved in technology and I wanted to get my hands dirty using anthropology to actually do something. First I got a job working full-time at the university as a computer jock, and I started by regaining my life: I got involved in the local old-time and Irish music scene in the area, I made friends that had nothing to do with anthropology, I worked with a friend leading canoe trips on the local river and started rock climbing and generally having a pretty happy life.

And I also did research, lots of research into the life I wanted. I scanned journals and periodicals, professional trade journals looking for any connections of people working in anthropology or social science and technical fields.  Design Anthropology was in its infancy then, and I was lucky enough to find an article about some anthropologists combining anthropology and technology skills to help companies develop new products. Then by coincidence, another graduate student appeared in my office and showed me an article about the very same company and said “I think I found your job.” She was right of course, after that it was just about the job hunt (another long post). Was all my education and training a waste? Hardly. I was a trained anthropologist, with extensive technical expertise, had years of experience watching how people interact with technology, and had a couple of years’ experience in a consulting environment from my previous graduate degree. Those were all qualifications people were looking for. Once I cracked the code of what I wanted to do, and where it was valued, I was fielding multiple offers precisely due to all the effort I initially thought I had wasted by not getting the PhD.

For me, it was far and away the best choice then and is now. I have had a great career, multiple actually, and for all of them that MA in anthropology has been a major factor in my getting those positions. At this point, I really don’t have a personal or professional need for a PhD, and a vanity PhD seems like a waste of everyone’s time on already strained university budgets.

So, that’s why I didn’t get a PhD.

1 APRIL 2012 (Ethnography.com Newswire) Washington, DC – American Anthropological Association Reassures Worried Nation faced with Mayan Apocalypse

In light of the coming end of the world, The American Anthropological Association (AAA) has announced its official Continuity Plan to insure the nations vital resource of cultural anthropologists remains intact during the cannibalistic orgy of violence immediately following the end of days on December 21, 2012.

According to AAA President Charles Gusmallian “Cultural Anthropology is uniquely positioned to explain the coming Apocalypse.  We have a grip on the intricacies of Mayan culture, and also a unique view of how people behave when totally screwed.  Psychology can’t do that, economics can’t do that, and biology can’t do that.  Only Cultural Anthropology.  We also have a large backlog of unemployed PhD.s  Talk about win-win-win!  So while people are attempting to scrape up the last radioactive morsels of food from the earth in a useless attempt to postpone their inevitable gut-wrenching death, we are sure they will take comfort in knowing the AAA will maintain a rigorous Institutional Review Board structure, not to mention connecting scientifically with the nature of Mayan gods.”

The President of the AAA Section for Prophecy Science, George Tsoukalos, said anthropologists have been working hard to pinpoint the date of the end of the world and but only recently have retrieved hard scientific evidence. The discovery that pregnant Jersey Shore cast member Snooki has December 21, 2012 as a due date adds the final layer of certainty to the prophesy.  According to Dr. Tsoukalos this clearly relates to the Quatrain #12-1639 of the infallible prophet Nostradamus:

From the womb of an Eastern shore it comes
The dame suckles the wine of the thorny Cactaceae
The Destroyer is conceived in besotted tragedy
He will of orange hue be revealed in her image

Tsoukalos clarified “There is only one possible interpretation, my research shows this clearly refers to a “Jersey Shore” cast member giving birth to some form of vile unholy man thing, possibly resembling a cross between a Hobbit and a crack-addicted Oompa-Loompa with an unquenchable thirst for human flesh.”

Charles Gusmallian outlined the continuity plan to the national media “Prior to the end of the world, the AAA executive staff and the presidents of the various sections will be moved to an undisclosed but sacred location where they will perform sacred dances from every culture of the world until it is determined safe to emerge onto the surface. We have adequate food stores for several years along with several dozen tenure hungry assistant professors to take care of the scut work and defend the facility from the ravening hordes. Additionally, we are carrying all of the most relevant research conducted by cultural anthropologists in the last 30 years.”

Dr. Tsoukalos then chose an paper at random “Look at this one for example; ‘The Use of The Freshwater Trumpet Snail as a Metaphor for the Neo-Imperialist Dialogical Precepts of the Yanamamo Peoples Proto-Marxist Views of Post-Modern Modernity Through the Medium of Modern Dance.’ This is the kind of information people are going to need to rebuild a society.”

This announcement comes as part of the AAA’s 5th official warning to the worlds governments in regards to end of the world on December 21th 2012. The President of the AAA Section for Prophecy Science, continued: “Despite multiple warnings and our extensive public outreach using such peer-reviewed television programming such as “Ancient Aliens,” “The Nostradamus Effect,” and using AAA funding to produce the movie “2012,” people are still unprepared for the anthropologically correct end of the world only 264 days from today. Unlike those hacks at the Centers for Disease Control who believe in fanciful notions such as Zombie attacks (http://www.cdc.gov/phpr/zombies.htm) and social constructions they call a “virus,” dedicated anthropologists have been doing real research into the Mayan prophesy. Gusmallian closed the media event stating “Really, anything you do from here on out is pretty much futile” and shotgunned a beer.

A few year ago, I was working at Kodak and friend and I were talking about the idea of Rolling Segmentation.  More recently, we have been talking about how it relates to how that thinking can be applied to issues of instability and insurgency.

I  have not given the idea much thought for the last few years, and on rethinking about rolling segmentations/cohorts now, I have more questions than answers.  Not the least of which is how is it all that different from any other longitudinal study?  There are a number of them out there about how people’s political attitudes shift as they age, but I would be leery of trying to extrapolate them between different cultures.  When I go back to the beginning of the idea, it popped up at Kodak as an attempt to explain why over time technology seemingly was adopted by older segments that had not adopted it before. My theory being that if you looked at the adoption trends over years, you would find that a lot of the uptake was in fact that the 20-30 segment had simply aged into the 30-40 segment giving the illusion of older populations adopting the tech. The 20-30 year olds simply drug the technology with them forward in time.  That does not explain the entire uptake of course, there will always be early adopters across all ages at any given time. It also suggest waves of adoption, when in some cases, I am betting is more of a moving wall for certain types of adoption: Music, is in waves: each generation or so has its own music, those styles routinely build on each other, each style waxes and wans in relative popularity.  Tech on the other hand is more of a wall: some early adopters pick it up, and if it is a viable long-term value to people, meets some need AND nothing superior comes along, the succeeding generations will pick it up. In some areas of technology, we have seen more rapid flows up the age chain from younger early adopters to older: think ipods/mp3 players from portable CD players. Thinking about it, maybe it is frequency and overlap. Some waves have  a longer life than others for various reasons.

The question is not then the difference between Rolling Cohort Analysis (RCA) and other longitudinal studies (because RCA is by nature longitudinal), but more of a lens by which to question the model of “segmentations” as usually found in business analysis. It is a warning bell that looking at segments only in a single moment is an artificial and inaccurate representation of the possible future. In turn can it be used to better judge the size of the current market and more importantly, predict the size of future markets? Segmentations as usually presented are static representations of the market.  A simple snapshot of the world as it stands.  There are studies that look at how various segments are growing, i.e. predications of the size of the Latino population in the US in the future, or the effects of birth rates on other countries, etc and people do try to understand how to do future planning and such from that. What I am getting at is RCA is more a way to look at something rather than a method itself.  The ultimate question being: as an age cohort (something that requires definition as well for each study) progress through life stages in a particular culture, what evolves and how?  What stays stable? But companies of course, don’t want to age with their customer base: As an example, take the questionable “most coveted 18-35 year old” demographic. Practically a catch phrase at this point.  As Nike customers age, they don’t want to stop appealing to that lower age group. I live in a building with that problem, it is seen as an elderly “old money” condo building, and the resident population is aging out, i.e. dying. Nike, my building, the Army, Apple and the rest all need to absorb people at early age groups to get them to carry the technology/brand message/ideology forward.  Sure they want customers at all segments, but a customer with a potential 50 years of lifetime purchasing and influence is more valuable than a customer with 10 years left of life time purchasing.  You and I are of shorter time value to companies, and our 30 year old colleagues are of higher value.

Back to RCA: It is just another way of talking about, but intended to highlight, the dynamic nature of and potential acceleration of concepts over time. It is a mutli-modal analysis that looks at intersections of multiple kinds of adoptions in an effort to suggest directionality.  Can it also be used to predict disruptions? The CD/iPod could be an example: CD’s killed records in pretty short order, but CD’s really had a pretty limited lifespan all things considered.  I would be willing to bet that if you looked at the uptake rates of MP3 players and iPods among all age groups that previously owned portable CD players, you would find a more flattened adoption pattern across ages than something like Personal Computers. Why? Well, convenience can’t be discounted, but we also have a population among a much wider age group that was comfortable with computers, and had access to high speed internet both of which are critical factors to adoption of portable digital media.

So that’s a long walk to get to asking how RCA is of value when looking at questions of unrest and large scale behavior among populations. Without significant access to multiple variables, the answer is “beats me!” We still don’t have a great understanding of the socio-cultural dynamics of places like Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran (Just to name three in the news frequently). These are places that are in ways culturally designed to be opaque to outsiders. As much as religion has been a theme of liberal vs. conservatives in debates over the last decade in the US and this upcoming election, we still don’t have a clue what it means to live in a society where someone’s interpretation of religion permeates every aspect of life, and that person holds considerable authority. Nepotism in hiring is not corruption, it is meeting obligations to family. Denying anything to outsiders is normal, it is not outsiders business. What we call a lie, is not a lie in another context and if you came of age in the Saddam era, you learned a lot about the value in keeping your mouth shut about and around authority figures.  In the US we just don’t understand or appreciate the overwhelming power an authority can gain by cutting people off or severely reducing assess to news sources outside of the regime. Sure we get up in arms about keeping and free and open internet, but we as a country don’t have a first-hand clue about the power of state run media to completely shape reality. Sure our government, corporations, political parties have spin control, but that’s nothing compared to the totalitarian control found in other places.

Maybe RCA is simply more difficult (not impossible) to apply to unstable countries. In the US, we expect a certain level of rebellion by younger generations.  In the US, it is an expected part of the process that younger people are going to dress, speak, have music, use technology and more in ways that surprise/offend/concern previous generations.  We encourage this behavior by making words like “follower” or “sheep” negative connotations for someone we see as not having the  intelligence/brains/imagination to take risks in creating a unique identity.  We don’t have family fealty, we have a “mommas boy” (excuse the dated language) and “boomerang kids” for people that don’t or wont break with family to create their own world. (Which by the way, I was on a train in India and one older man pronounced that our emphasis on kids leaving to create their own homes was the proof that Americans don’t love their family’s as much as the rest of the world, a very interesting perspective).

In unstable countries, displays of self can potentially have more serious impact on the individual and family level. Americans just don’t get the power of perceived “shame” and “honor” and how it can be used in all kinds of ways to manipulate and mold people. RCA is in some ways the tracking of “displays of self” as they evolve over time.  Perhaps the more stable the culture, then the more regular the “Beats of the waves” are internally to a cohort as compared to other countries. I think the question about unstable countries in regards to RCA is how much of it is X steps forward and X steps back, and why? Or in more stark terms, in the US when an age cohort(s) starts protesting how the nation is operating, the US government does not disappear them. Yes, we indeed have over-zealous and possibly illegal reactions in some cities to the occupy wall-street movement, but it is doubtful that any of them are being hauled off to prison for years, being tortured just for the sake of it and possibly vanished along with family and friends.  You can’t have a rolling cohort when the government is rolling the bodies of the cohort into a ditch. Limits on speech, limits on access to outside media, reprisals to movements that evolve stable countries all could contribute to severely attenuating how influential a cohort is as they age. At some point most people will just opt to survive.

Here we are in the 2nd half of the academic year. If the 1st half got off to a rocky start, maybe this is a good time to talk about time management. Not the “The 7 habits of that smugly overambitious go-getter” variety. This is aimed more at the “How can I squeeze school into my hectic schedule of procrastination and binge drinking” style. In other words, for the rest of us. This is not to ignore what I think is the real value of the university experience: the freedom to explore, to question, to learn what you never expected. If you go though school without some kind of an “Ah ha” moment, then you have to ask if you really took advantage of the opportunity. Time management is making sure you have the ability to explore those Ah Ha moments.

What does time management mean? It is simply developing a strategy that helps you set reachable and realistic goals that treats school as something akin to a job. School is not the same as a job, I know that. In the US, heading off to college represents all kinds of milestones and transitions towards adulthood including making a lot of really stupid mistakes. Since stupid mistakes are part of life, you may as well factor this in and manage the parts you can. But if you can put yourself into the mindset that school IS your fulltime job, it might help with things like procrastination (my all time largest problem in school). That part-time job you have in the library, or as a teaching assistant or else-where are something you have to do to make ends meet, but school is your fulltime job. (This is referring to fulltime students. Part time students are often already fighting a massive time management battle).

In addition to getting those “Ah Ha” moments that we all love, there are some very basic tangible goals you want to hit: Graduate in 4 years, 5 at the outside with the GPA, experiences, training and recommendations you need to take you next step, no matter what that may be. School is about more than the GPA and getting out, but school is also expensive and your GPA at the end matters, so it is in your best interest to keep that in the back of your mind.

First rule: Incompletes are bad debt. Very Bad Debt. No matter what else you take away from here, learn that taking an Incomplete at the end of a class should be seen as a last option. You would be amazed at how often someone’s college career gets derailed due to piling up incompletes. No, your instructor will not take pity on you because its 5 days to graduation and that one incomplete is in your way. When you have an incomplete, you have very little room to negotiate. You don’t even have the option to take a lower grade if the instructor decides you have to finish that paper or project to complete the course. Never take an incomplete? Well, that’s strategy isn’t it? It’s much better than an F or D or maybe a C, but if it is a class outside your major and you really don’t want to spend more time on it, would you rather have the B or the bad debt of an incomplete that can become an F? I once knew someone that took an incomplete to get an A+ instead of an A, maybe I am a slacker, but that is insane given how much riskier the Incomplete is. Also instructors talk, if people find out you are taking several incompletes, they are going to stop giving you that option. Remember that taking the Incomplete is not your choice, it is your instructors. They have no obligation to give you one because its it bad debt for them as well! They have to give you a grade, chase you down before it becomes an F and listen to your excuse because you keep putting off that paper or project you owe them. If you are piling up incompletes, you may need to lay out a semester just to get them off the plate. Having an incomplete is mentally the same as carrying over that (or those) class(es) into your next course load.

Oh hell, you already have an incomplete? Weren’t you just reading all that… ok, ok, fine. I’ll calm down. Either you have screwed up badly or some legitimate misfortune befell you at the last part of the semester. All we can do now is move forward. That incomplete is a big pile of rotting food in your kitchen and you have GOT to clean that up before it gets into the rest of the food and really stinks up the whole house. To start with, there is no easy solution that will not increase you workload unless you have some miracle deal with the instructor. You cannot “borrow time” from your existing work load. If you take that attitude you are looking at a domino effect of incompletes. Is it starting to sink in why this Incomplete of yours is a big friggin deal?

There is only one way out of this: give up your free time to finish the job. That it, the only solution.

You can’t take the time from the work you already have to do, like the 500 pages of reading you were assigned over the weekend that you weren’t going to do anyway. I KNOW how hard this is, I am a terrible procrastinator and we are the worse kind of people to have incompletes because the deadline is often vaguely out there, but not quite real. The longer you take, the better the final product is expected to be! Maybe this is one of those “screw it, I will do a little worse work and take a B for the paper” moments on this particular project. But you have to turn in something or risk getting a failing grade. I am not going to even say you are going to feel better getting it off your plate. Having to finish this Incomplete is going to put you behind on your other work that you will have to double up on to prevent it from going incomplete. By the way, if we are talking about a 10 page double spaced paper please don’t write and tell me. I will run screaming from the room. This blog entry is nearly four pages double spaced using Arial 10 point font. 10 pages is really not that big a deal.

Make a plan, set a drop dead date and make your idea realistic: What is the minimum you have to do to get the grade you want. My apologies to my faculty friends, but this is triage and the crass reality of it. Your goal is not to win the undergraduate award for writing, it’s to get the incomplete off you plate. Scale back as much as you can: do you really need 40 sources or will 10 do? Is the instructor looking for regurgitation of their pet ideas or original thought on your part? Being that challenging student during the class is great. But now it’s an incomplete, a pain in the ass and not the time to get clever. Have you got a draft? Great, drop it off at the professors office. You might not get comments, but it shows a good faith effort on your part towards meeting your commitment. If they do comment, you might lucky and they say “hey, if you just add a paragraph about X, we are good to go.” And please dear Lord, don’t drop off an idea they already rejected and this is that same dumbass, irrelevant, unrealistic idea that you stubbornly hung on to and got you that incomplete in the first place. LET IT GO. I have watched people do that very thing. I don’t know what insanity overtakes them, but for the love of Pete, knock that crap off.
Do that incomplete: Do it this weekend, do it over two weekends if you have to. Unless that paper is huge, two hard weekends can cover it.