I just got in from a meeting with my adviser and it went so well. Let me start out by saying that I really like my adviser; she's a sweet older nun who really seems to care about her students. When I officially declare my major (another story altogether, to be honest) I'm going to miss her.
Last semester I was not a good student. First of all, statistics is the devil's way of beating self-confidence to a pulp. Second, after Ryan's accident, I dropped off the face of the Earth. I'm not making excuses for my poor grades, but that's what happened. Ryan's accident happened at a really pivotal point in the semester--a little less than 3/4s of the way through, when papers and exams are starting to get even more serious and studying outweighs almost anything else you could be doing.
I didn't have the emotional capacity to even be away from my family for a few weeks, never mind write papers on gender and inequality. When I came back to school, I managed to make up for most of my lost time and I didn't fail anything. My GPA, however, suffered greatly, and I was put on academic probation.
That isn't who I am, you know. I'm good at school. I don't usually have to work too hard to maintain good grades and my GPA usually hovers around 3.2. When I got the letter explaining academic probation and the restrictions it has on me, one of the restrictions was that I could only take 16 credits.
Each class at Emmanuel counts for 4 credit hours and most students only take 4 classes per semester to graduate on time. This means I could only take 4 classes. In order to graduate on time, I have to take 20 credit hours (5 classes) for the next four semesters.
I struggled at first with this news, but slowly came to terms with it. If I have to stay an extra semester at Emmanuel, I will. I want my college degree. No, I need my college degree. Graduating college is something that's very important to me, and if it meant graduating in January 2014, I'd do it. Of course I'd do it.
(Why? I've come this far in my academic career, it would be dumb to drop out now. If I were to drop out, what would I do? Work at Dolci the rest of my life? No thank you, I smell when I come home from working there. Education was really important to my grandfather. I'll be the first one in my immediate family with a college degree. My parents are going to be so proud when I get my diploma, a diploma I worked my butt off for. It's like a big slap in the face to everyone who doubted me. Like, haha! I succeeded! The party we'll have for my sister's high school graduation and my college graduation is going to be epic. Not everyone can do this, you know. I want to be able to show the world what I'm worth. But talk minus action is worthless; I can spout off all my abilities whenever I want, but they aren't going to prove anything to anyone. That degree is what matters.)
Today, I found out that I am, in fact, a junior. I will graduate on time. I will walk across that stage adorned in blue and gold, and I will receive a diploma without having to go to school an extra semester.
Words cannot describe how excited I am right now.
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