Michael Crichton (Jurassic Park Author) Proved Harvard Professor Was Giving Him Unfair Grades

    Michael Crichton, author of Jurassic Park, felt his literature professor at Harvard was giving him unfair grades. To prove it, he turned in a paper by George Orwell and received a B-.

    In his memoir, "Travels", that was released in 2002, Michael Crichton takes readers back several decades to his days as a Harvard student when he suspected his literature professor was giving him bunk grades:

    I had gone to college planning to become a writer, but early on a scientific tendency appeared. In the English department at Harvard, my writing style was severely criticized and I was receiving grades of C or C+ on my papers. At eighteen, I was vain about my writing and felt it was Harvard, and not I, that was in error, so I decided to make an experiment. The next assignment was a paper on Gulliver’s Travels, and I remembered an essay by George Orwell that might fit. With some hesitation, I retyped Orwell’s essay and submitted it as my own. I hesitated because if I were caught for plagiarism I would be expelled; but I was pretty sure that my instructor was not only wrong about writing styles, but poorly read as well. In any case, George Orwell got a B- at Harvard, which convinced me that the English department was too difficult for me.

    I decided to study anthropology instead. But I doubted my desire to continue as a graduate student in anthropology, so I began taking premed courses, just in case.

    It's highly likely that Crichton had submitted Orwell's "Politics vs. Literature: An Examination of Gulliver's Travels" 1946 essay.

    Afterwards, Crichton kept writing to the side and eventually attended Harvard Medical School. Several decades later, Crichton published many great novels - some even making it to the big screen. Most notable of these is Jurassic Park, which recently had a reboot with the release of Jurassic World.

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