Yawn. Middle school was a waste of life.

High school was decent, but my first semester of university waaaas bullshit. I worked on some of the same short stories I had worked on in 6/7th grade. I wanted to cry.

I went to England the second semester under the expectation I was a junior or senior in college [haaaaaaaaaaaaaah], got my a** kicked the first three weeks, and then got my head back into the game. Oxford used 'you should be around here, but if you're a little under or a little over, then what the hell' word counts, and it made writing papers soooo much easier. I can never guesstimate where I am in my paper (length wise) until I'm done, regardless of outlining my papers (yes, I still do that, too). Some ideas, ie. paragraphs, take longer to explain than others, and I don't want to rush/bullshit around. So. Having a word count and not having to worry about double spacing and page numbers and fonts and all that bullshit, and for one reason or another, word counts kept me more on track that page limits.

And let's be for real, by the end of the term, my 2.5k paper turned out to be... upwards of 5k with quotes included. Which is roughly equal to 18+ pages. Double spaced. Needless to say, my teacher was both horrified and delighted. Shhh, my essay was "Dracula vs. Edward Cullen". With big words. And I got an A. Hollaaaaa'.

Now, I'm back at my home university and bored as hell, academically.

Personally, if I were ever to teach, and I do mean on the collegiate level [gag, middle/high schoolers], I would probably give a min/max word reference, simply because I'd be looking for a certain level of research and work put into the paper. I understand if a student doesn't require the same verbosity as others do, but that just means that they should be writing about a broader topic with more points to make. Specificity is good, but not always.