Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Getting it done is HARD! Going for a goal and making it happen takes grit, determination, and plain old fashioned effort. I should know, having just come out of the last few years working toward my Master’s in Education with an emphasis in educational technology at Loyola University Maryland.
I’d say that the onset of my tenure as a Loyola grad student wasn’t ideal. Mom was dying of multiple myeloma a few states away, and I spent most of my free time traveling back and forth to help her and my sister, my mother’s primary care-taker. Still, I had a desire to get this degree with Loyola. The cohort with our school system was beginning, so I jumped into the river of academia with both feet and no waders to protect me. After the first semester with Loyola, Mom passed, just twenty-one days shy of her seventy-first birthday. To say I was grief-stricken is an understatement. To be able to study, and to study well during this time of sorrow, took everything that I had within me, and then some.
I remember orientation day in August and thinking to myself, I can do this. Visions of a 4.0 grade point average floated before my eyes as I watched all of the young recruits in the audience. I had experience behind me, and confidence coursed through my veins. Even though I had studied Spanish, creative writing, and leadership over the years, going back to grad school, while working full time and caring for Mom, brought me back to reality.
You see, it had been forever since I had done academic research myself, even though I taught the same skills to middle schoolers. Learning APA, even though I was well-versed in MLA, was also a challenge. The hardest part, though, was bringing forth the extrovert in me during collaborative projects, even though the introvert on the Myers-Briggs scale was a stronger force within my outwardly shy exterior. However, I knew being the first person in my family to get a Master’s degree was something to be proud of, so I forged ahead.
Countless nights studying until the wee hours of the morning brought me my first A-minus. There went the 4.0, and my heart wilted a little. I so wanted the 4.0 descriptor on my resume. Not one to be easily swayed, I carried on and plowed deeper into my studies, skipping meals, reading and rereading difficult texts, and creating papers and digital projects, all the while citing everything in the elusive APA. Takeout became my new normal, as time for cooking and cleaning went to the wayside. Reading for pleasure and watching TV became non-existent past times, as did hanging out with dear friends. I had a goal, and it required all of my attention.
I was in the midst of an eight-week course when Mom died and my world as I knew it split apart. For anyone who has ever taken grad-level classes, eight weeks is an unforgiving schedule. Not one assignment can be done haphazardly, nor a class missed. With a solid A and an A-minus behind me, I needed to continue on and to do so with fidelity and vigilance, but my heart wasn’t in it. Still, I kept going, studying, doing, breathing, being. While my life as I knew it had changed irrevocably, I was trying my best to live my new normal without my mother. Then came the D grade for a project I had completed wrong and not well at that. I knew I wasn’t a D student. I knew I could do better, but how do I do so when emotions are high and spirit is not? The best way I could, one step, one day, one hour, one moment at a time.
I contacted the professor and pleaded my case. She compassionately allowed me to redo my project for resubmission. In the end, I earned a B+ for the course, my only grade below an A- for my entire degree. In the end, my cumulative GPA was a 3.897, not the 4.0 I had envisioned at the onset. However, sometimes life hits, and a goal is refashioned, for we are not perfect beings, no matter how hard we may try to be. We are fallible, yet strong. We can reach our goals, but sometimes our goals alter and new lessons are learned from the things that change us.
I know now that I can do anything I set my mind to do. However, I also have more insight into my struggling students, those who turn in D work, when I know that they can do better. I also have more empathy for my professors, who are giving grades to students whose lives have gotten in the way of their intentions. It’s a delicate balance, this dance of academia. You have to keep stepping to the music, even when the discord of life surrounds you. The lessons learned by doing something, be it done well, or poorly, are invaluable. For it is the journey of life that gives the most meaning. The goal can be reached with all the muster inside you bring forth. Remember, though, that along with the vision you hold in your heart is the one the Universe gives to you, and that may play by a very different tune with an even sweeter melody.
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