Would you consider yourself a perefectionist?

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With classes grade wise give me a C and let me pass. (that's passing at my current College) but lately during the first week I've posted to the class board and the teacher has kept saying that's not right etc. I feel so bad about this. I get really hurt if I don't meet the teacher standards and am afraid of failing my Business Ethics course. I emailed the teacher she said she tries to help you understand the work so you can get the highest grade so she IS nice. THANKFULLY! I was wondering if anyone else is like this. A perfectionist in school not from a grade stand point but from meeting the teachers standards in your work.

About certain things, definitely.
Others, no.
I am a perfectionist with my handwriting, for instance... and when I line things up, I want them to be as perfect as they can be when viewed by the naked eye. With schoolwork, too. I always want 100s, and get upset if I get less than a 100% on something that I thought was perfect. 99s suck.
However, my schoolbag is a mess, and my bedroom tends to be unorganized (except for my books).

I tend to live my life on a set of rules and perfectionism. I need to get high grades in school or else I feel I have failed myself. I need to make sure my books in alphabetical order or else they aren't right. Things need to be a certain angle or they are not right. I am an extreme organizer and perfectionist.
It needs to be right or else I get upset.

I also have rules too, like for clothes. We have hangars I have to make sure the hangars are right white shirts on white hangars, blue shirts on blue hangars, etc.

I relate to this very well. There are certain things I have to keep organized, while other things can be unorganized. Jmnixon95 mentions books. While my general array of books is rather unorganized, I keep my books on Hopewell earthworks organized on a special shelf. And with DVDs, I like to keep all of my box sets (complete series) organized.

I will relate an example from my life on perfectionism. When we added a family room on our house, I got two quarter-round windows for the eave. After the contractor installed them, I was measuring them to make sure they were perfectly centered. They weren't. But I got over it. When we had our kitchen remodeled, the contractor had one of the windows off a little bit. I actually had to remove it and put it back in with the correct spacing. On school work when I was young, I tried to be as perfect as I could in the subject areas I liked without stressing myself too much. A "B" here and there didn't bother me too much.

Ex-perfectionist. I can't do anything sloppily enough nowadays.

Going back to college, I see what you mean here. I'm a hyper-perfectionist, I didn't do particularly well as a teenager, since I considered classes as a place to learn. Now I know better.
I found that studying the class topics in thorough detail long before the class begins is the only way that I can cope. (Of course, it doesn't work if you misread the course syllabus and study the wrong topics.)

I'm a perfectionist about everything. I tend to do things all the way very well or not at all. I know it's harmful, but I don't know how to break the behavior. My boss has been working with me at work to put in partial effort on things, so I may be able to learn over time.

Yes, I'm a perfectionist; but in my life I have found enough colorful ways of failing to reach perfection that I should know better.

I am an extreme perfectionist when it comes to certain things....like my translations, like grades when I was in school, like my work. Any special interest...needs to be perfect. OTOH, my desk is a mess, as is my bedroom, and I tend to be really disorganized.

~Kate

I'm with the "either do it perfectly or not at all" group, meaning I won't even try or make an effort if I know I for some reason can't do it to my preferred standard.

No wonder my family always rolls their eyes at me whenever I try to explain that I'm a perfectionist, when in their eyes I'm the sole reason our entire house is a mess... Go figure..

It's good to see you are back in college. I remember that's something you really wanted.

It sounds like you've still got a lot of anxiety about upsetting teachers, and having misunderstandings. I wish I had some good advice, but all I can think of is the totally useless and lame comment: "Try not to let it get to you."

I've taken many, many college classes in my time, and I can tell you that sometimes misunderstandings just can't be avoided. I ended up getting a bad grade in a class because of a misunderstanding on a major project. The professor had asked us to make a "poster" for this big project, and no matter how many times I asked for clarification on what she wanted, she never said that "poster" means a full research paper written on a large board, with a picture. All of my life, I have thought that a "poster" is a big picture with, possibly, a few captions. I asked about the project many times, because it didn't seem quite right that she was giving us six weeks to do this simple little project, and that it would account for 80% of our grade. But she never, ever, ever said that there needed to be a research paper on the poster. I understood that we were supposed to do research to get the information to put in our picture and captions, but who the hell ever heard of a research paper stuck on a poster? I certainly hadn't.

Somehow, she assumed that we had all seen "informational" posters, and that we should all know what they are, and that they are research papers. I'm 43 years old and I still haven't seen anything like that in real life. But apparently everyone else had. I had gotten A's in every one of my anthropology classes (Anth major), but this one misunderstanding got me a C- in that class. The worse part was that I was made to feel like a bit of a twonk. The professor wouldn't even begin to admit that she could have explained things better. Then I had to have that same professor for my very last class, and it was very uncomfortable, because she had decided that I was a right, royal pain.

The good news is, that was only one class out of many. Most professors seemed to appreciate it when students ask questions and want things clarified. A few will go out of their way to make you sorry you opened your mouth, but that's their character defect, not yours. There's no sense in beating yourself up if you misunderstand what the teacher wanted, or if you do something a bit wrong. It happens to everyone once in a while.

Anyway, good luck with college, and enjoy!

It's good to see you are back in college. I remember that's something you really wanted.

It sounds like you've still got a lot of anxiety about upsetting teachers, and having misunderstandings. I wish I had some good advice, but all I can think of is the totally useless and lame comment: "Try not to let it get to you."

I've taken many, many college classes in my time, and I can tell you that sometimes misunderstandings just can't be avoided. I ended up getting a bad grade in a class because of a misunderstanding on a major project. The professor had asked us to make a "poster" for this big project, and no matter how many times I asked for clarification on what she wanted, she never said that "poster" means a full research paper written on a large board, with a picture. All of my life, I have thought that a "poster" is a big picture with, possibly, a few captions. I asked about the project many times, because it didn't seem quite right that she was giving us six weeks to do this simple little project, and that it would account for 80% of our grade. But she never, ever, ever said that there needed to be a research paper on the poster. I understood that we were supposed to do research to get the information to put in our picture and captions, but who the hell ever heard of a research paper stuck on a poster? I certainly hadn't.

Somehow, she assumed that we had all seen "informational" posters, and that we should all know what they are, and that they are research papers. I'm 43 years old and I still haven't seen anything like that in real life. But apparently everyone else had. I had gotten A's in every one of my anthropology classes (Anth major), but this one misunderstanding got me a C- in that class. The worse part was that I was made to feel like a bit of a twonk. The professor wouldn't even begin to admit that she could have explained things better. Then I had to have that same professor for my very last class, and it was very uncomfortable, because she had decided that I was a right, royal pain.

The good news is, that was only one class out of many. Most professors seemed to appreciate it when students ask questions and want things clarified. A few will go out of their way to make you sorry you opened your mouth, but that's their character defect, not yours. There's no sense in beating yourself up if you misunderstand what the teacher wanted, or if you do something a bit wrong. It happens to everyone once in a while.

Anyway, good luck with college, and enjoy!

Absolutely. I try to make my artwork as perfect as possible. Same with the flies I tie for my fishing. Most things I do, I try to make my performance as perfect as my abilities will allow. It does come admittadly with its costs, both mentally and physically. But its the price I pay, because I cannot change.

I used to be. I grew up in a religion called Christian Science, which claimed that the true nature of man is to be perfect. Between that and growing up with an alcoholic father, (Google Adult Children of Alcoholics for more about this) I was very perfectionistic. Much later, I learned the folly of perfectionism and that religion (now agnostic) and seek a balance between being perfect and having no standards at all.

As someone with some ASD traits, I have always had a hard time accurately determining the standards of my teachers and employers, so I aimed at being perfect. Often, I would be perfect in some detail (which had little value in the eyes of the supervisor) and lacking in other areas that had greater value to the supervisors. I have gotten better about this over the years.

Yes, but it's more of a cognitive trait than anything else. I simply can't figure out where "good enough" is, so I shoot for perfection. It's just easier than trying to figure out when it makes sense to stop.

I'm a perfectionist, and it's annoying because it means I do things too slowly because I want them to be 'perfect'. I don't really care about school work being perfect, though. I just study and put minimal effort into homework. I still get good grades.