Will you sign on a sealed envelope?

Last night, I was going through the recommendation letters that I have got from my professors at the college. Actually, I was sorting them into different application packets for the 10 different places I am applying to. And then I remembered something.

The first time I had gone there, I had got my recommendation letters in envelopes and had them sealed. Later, I came to know that you also needed a signature across the flap of the envelope to prove its authenticity. So I was off, last weekend, to my college, to get signatures across the flaps.

Now, as you might understand, I reached my professors with 10 envelopes, each of them duly sealed, but bearing no other mark of identification or proof about the contents within. I had also bought extra envelopes so that I may get the letters out, put them in the new envelopes, seal them and have their signatures on them. To my amazement, they asked me not to open them, and just put their signatures on the envelopes. I was stumped... I mean, I could as well have got their signature on a sealed envelope containing anything written on the inside, or they could have contained even some narcotics, anything! Personally, in their shoes I don't think I would have done that. I would've asked the student to put the letters in the new envelopes, and then signed, etc. because the affair would neither be costly nor time-consuming, just plain playing safe. But well, they did not give this a second thought.

I have been really humbled by this. Humbled by the trust and belief they place on me. I know that my four years of engineering have not gone waste. I have earned the trust and good will of these people. I know that they will sustain me in the future.