It is the last week of classes and everyone is getting ready for finals and graduation. It’s a time for celebration and why shouldn’t it be? It’s the time to show everyone that all your hard work has paid off by walking up and receiving that diploma! There are plenty of people I know who are graduating next week and I could not be happier for them. They did an amazing thing; they’re working for a better future.
Well what about those super seniors like myself? Feeling down? Feeling like you’re falling behind? Well that’s perfectly normal. If you’re like me, you had a plan, and you were hoping more or less the plan would be executed without a hitch. And if you were like me, the plan went up in a blaze of glory.
The original plan was to acquire a kinesiology degree within, at most, 5 years (which would have made my graduation this May). However there were a few things I hadn’t figured would have put a bump in the road. I don’t think anyone would have anticipated the recession that hit right as I began college. This impacted me for about one year worth of classes. I was forced to cut my class intake to two classes for each semester.
The second and more important hitch in the plan that I was 100% sure would have never happened was changing my major. Yes, changing my major was never in the cards for me. I had known what I wanted to do since I was a sophomore in high school. It was my fourth year second semester when I came to the realization that I would not be happy with my life if I stayed on the kinesiology path.
As you read you can see that the two reasons for falling behind were not superficial. I didn’t take time off to “find myself,” I didn’t retake classes or anything. I simply could not do it.
I had no financial aid at the time of need so I was forced to take time off and work to get my full time schedule back. I hold no grudges for having to find a job because it was been one of the best things to have happened to me. I was able to work my butt off and get back to my courses without worrying about my finances.
When I got back to it I had spent a semester or two working in kinesiology when I figured out that I really didn’t want to be a physical therapist anymore. In spring semester of 2013 I changed my major and began a new year with a clean slate.
Luckily it worked out for the best. After my first year practically done in my new major, I can safely say that I made the right decision.
The point I’m trying to make readers is that it doesn’t matter how long it takes you to finish. This is not a marathon that’s held for everyone at the same time.
Everyone is running their own personal marathon. We might be tripped by fate and get sent rolling down a gravel hill and be all scraped up but eventually we pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, grab a cup of water and continue running to the finish line . The thing to remember is to not let the minor scrapes keep us down and just keep running.
