[ushercakes]

You failed because you didn't follow instructions. I can empathize with this - I too went to college, and was very annoyed by stupid instructions.

I thought upon graduating, I would be free to basically do what I want. What a rude awakening starting at my first programming job was. The reality is the world is full of red tape, bloat, and processes that may appear inefficient to you. A lot of the world will just appear plain "dumb".

You can and should try to change the world for the better, but, maybe on things of bigger scope than the gui of your sql assignment. Some things you should just follow the instructions on.

It's just part of the world. Pick your battles. For a SQL homework assignment, just do what the professor asks.

Here's a random anecdote from Jeff Bezos I like that kind of feels relevant, why it's better to be kind than clever: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmGN4Tn_d5Y

[tnecniv]

While I tend to grade generously when instructions aren’t followed, it is a real pain. It takes a lot more time to grade an assignment when someone does not follow the requested protocol. It’s likely to me that the prof saw a mess of printed code, said “I don’t have time to untangle this and grade it properly,” and didn’t give credit. Hell, I’ve wanted to do that on many an occasion but a fault of mine is that I am not respectful of my time and will try to help the student out by finding a way to award them points even if it takes 10x longer than it should have if they followed instructions.

I can sympathize that bad assignments are tedious and you might know a better way to do them, but you can’t expect to get credit when you don’t follow the instructions.

[tdeck]

Just to provide a counterpoint, my experience was that there was far more stupid bullshit in high school than in college, much of which we were told would prepare us for college. By this I mean petty, overly complicated processes and nitpicky rules. There was also more stupid bullshit in college than in the workforce that we were told, again, would prepare us for the workforce.

[quickthrower2]

Did Jeff's grandmother give up smoking and live a long age though as a result? Then Jeff was kind and clever. It is kind to seem to be nasty and take a personal hit for the greater good. Few understand that! Probably every freedom we have is a result of someone being an "asshole" in history!