Last Tuesday something traumatic happened to me, but I think finally, today, I am ready to talk about. As some of you know, I have been working diligently towards my master's degree and graduated May 8th or so thought. However, last Tuesday my advisor called me and left a message to call him as soon as I could. Of course, my hubby, being the totally optimistic person that he is, said that the advisor was probably calling to congratulate me and of course me, being the not optimistic person (at least in this matter), thought something must be wrong. Something being wrong is the understatement of the year...my advisor told me I was NOT approved for graduation!!! I don't know how I held it together with him on the phone except I think I was so speechless that I couldn't say anything except...OK. Apparently I had not taken one class that was needed for my degree, but because I had taken another class for a different program, my advisor thought I was good to graduate because he was only looking at my credits and the number of classes I had taken. Let me take a minute here to also explain that he was calling me on Tuesday and commencement had been on Monday, yes the day before!! I had not walked because I didn't want to pay the money and now I am curious how that would have been handled. Would they have called me on Tuesday and said "Oh we were just joking you aren't graduated" or would I have been there in cap and gown and never had my name called...talk about embarrassing. OK back to the real story...once I got off the phone the emotions came full force with tears, anger, frustration, depression, and just about every other horrible feeling you can imagine. To think that I was done, DONE, and then be told that no, I didn't graduate...I can't even explain...To make matters even worse the one course I needed was not going to be offered at my local campus until spring '08. There wasn't any way that I was going to make it another year for one class!! So when we got home, Dave told me to search to see if the course was offered at any other locations including the New Castle campus which was 2 hours away. The course was indeed being offered at the furthest location and had just started the previous week so I called my advisor to see if I could get the instructors number. The instructor of this course also happened to be the director of the education graduate program, which meant he had lots of power that other people did not. However, I had also heard that he could be pretty intimidating and expected a lot from his students, which would not have bothered me under normal circumstances, but thinking that I was going to have to deal with it for my last class, that I was taking after I thought I was done...well...Anyways I knew I had to get the class over with in order for me to move on, so I called him and asked if I could add his class and promised that I would make up any work that I had missed from the first night of class. His response was that it would not be possible because the drop/add period closed the day before!! That was just frosting on my cake and the desperation began oozing out of me as I explained my story to him. He then asked me to hold on while he checked my transcript. After asking me some questions about my final project paper (equivalent to a thesis) and commenting about my GPA (my 3.91 pride and joy) he said that he had the power to substitute that other class that I took for the one that I was missing. He explained that a master's requires 32 credits and since I had those, plus already took two curriculum classes (a curriculum class was what I was missing) that he would substitute my fiscal operations class so I COULD STILL GRADUATE. I then told him he was my hero, that he would never know how incredibly happy he has made me and how none of the rumors I had heard could possibly be true (just kidding...I was NOT bringing up things I had heard!!) and continued to thank him profusely. He promptly emailed me the paper showing the substitute form that he submitted to the registrar's office and told me that I just had to complete another petition to graduate and that my conferral date would not be until August. I was a little bummed that I would have to wait for my degree until August...hence why I still hadn't blogged about the whole thing. That is until today when I went to see about getting my transcripts sent to my district office upon conferral and saw that my conferral date and graduation date was already on my transcript!! I called the registrar's just to make sure and it is official...I GRADUATED WITH MY M. E.d. IN TEACHING AND INSTRUCTION ON MAY 8, 2007!!! I am now not just a "teacher," I am a "master teacher" and one incredibly happy woman too!!!
***I had celebrated my graduation the weekend before and received two spa gift cards from my girlfriends. So of course throughout this whole process all I could think was that I was going to have to give my gifts back and that did not make me happy!!! Now they are all mine and I think that facial and massage is going to be appreciated even more!!
phew! I feel your pain Mel! I was right there with you as you posted before briefly about no graduating. My heart is with you babe! Thanks Father for straightening it all out and getting Mel her diploma! My turn next!!
ReplyDeleteErinn
Wow. I can feel that kind of pain... I am SO HAPPY that this instructor was able to help you out so much. What an incredible blessing!
ReplyDeleteCONGRATULATIONS - with all my heart. :)
well, go-o-o-o-d night a livin' girl...that WAS traumatic. sorry you had to go through all that but very HAPPY to know that your Father has worked it out for you. PTL. CONGRATS on your grad!!! :)
ReplyDelete