Getting Feedback

As my college does not administer grades to its students, I at times have trouble gauging exactly how well I'm doing in a class. I feel comfortable with all the work I've turned in, but that doesn't necessarily mean that my professors feel the same way. The responses to my past few papers in my Latin American studies class have been critical, but constructive nonetheless. But finally yesterday I got a good response to a paper. I wasn't sure how well my prof liked me, as she is known for being a tough grader and has high expectations for her students, and I don't usually have as much to offer during class discussion as other students do. Previously excerpts from my work, as well as that of other students, had been used in a lesson on what not to do in an argument paper. So I was surprised on Wednesday when she used my last paper as an example of a strongly argued paper with a good thesis statement. Moreover, I was shocked to see how little criticism the paper had on it, as it was mostly covered in (approving) check-marks. It was good to finally get some good feedback in a class I was previously a little worried about. As well, in my Literary Journalism class on Tuesday, I had to read my 8-page memoir aloud to the class. I was freaking out about that leading up to it, as previous papers had been really well written, and I was afraid it would get torn to shreds by my class, especially by one student who always sits in the corner, rubbing his goatee. Rather, my professor had little criticism, and even called it a good example of "describing but not prescribing" (that's typically how she talks) and people seemed to actually enjoy it. And the dude who is always nitpicking other people's work said he thought it was "f**king great" and only had minor problems with it (which is good, because the memoir is far from perfect.) Getting this kind of feedback has been nice, since up to this point I was feeling unsure about how strong my work actually was.