I graduated April 6, 2022 with a Bachelors of Arts in Educational Studies, Special Education and Elementary Education from Western Governors University.
October/November of 2020, I was talking to my sister, who had just enrolled at WGU. She was undertaking a degree in Information Technology, because that is where her strengths lie. We were both wary of an online program, me especially as Michael had bad experiences at DeVry for which lawsuits continue to this day in the periphery of our ether. Amber had put in the work though and vetted this place, noting that the price was manageable, it was regionally accredited, and appeared relatively free of scandal. She applied and was accepted into the program and hit the ground running, having a wildly successful first semester.
At the time, I was seven months into a lockdown that seemed like it would never end and I was fading fast. The kids were here all the time, making noise and needing me. The mess was accumulating mess faster than I could clean it, a decided blow to my mental health. All the years I had spent trying to keep the burnout at bay was catching up with me; the Andieness was disappearing, being replaced by the robotically functional MOM unit.
So I thought…what the heck. Let’s give it a go.
A bit to know about me: I buy and accumulate used textbooks to routinely, in my free time, read and take detailed notes for funsies. I like to learn. It is part of the reason I am such a voracious reader--there is so much information out there and I want to take part in it. But my disastrous and fizzled end at Lubbock Christian left me with a mountain of debt and a crippling doubt in my intellectual abilities.
Growing up, school ran kind of the gamut from me. From special education services early on to strong performances in UIL to setting the curve to being second-string on the lit crit team, I was an inconsistent performer to say the least. There were shining moments where my work garnered praise and people started to take notice, but the attention would cause me to panic and I would sink back into mediocrity. It was around middle school, really eighth grade, where I couldn’t hide anymore. There were three teachers in particular--Mrs Beedle (history), Mrs Willis (English), and Mrs Greer (yearbook/newspaper) that recognized something and started asking “why aren’t you in advanced placement classes?” They wouldn’t let me fade into the background anymore, but gently dragged me in the light. I spent high school as a bottom achiever for the higher classes, graduating precisely in the middle of the pack. Unspectacular, unremarkable.
It didn’t help that the position of Smart Child (™) had already been taken in our family. I was always the little sister trying to catch up. So when I got to college, I had a lot to prove to myself.
I enrolled at LCU as a PreMed major. I got so organized, with this expanding file folder that held all my assignments. Each semester, I would take the syllabus and work through all the assignments listed and put them in the slot so that, worst came to worst, I had something to turn in when it came due. I’d set in with my textbook and write my notes, because I wanted to be prepped for that class. This way, walking in all I had to do was modify the assignments and add to the notes as I learned new information from the teacher, but I could really give my focus to the lecture. Even so, I was not absorbing the information in some classes as quickly as I needed to—history and English classes were still my strong suit, but my major classes in the sciences I was only middling in. I figured I wasn’t working hard enough.
This worked well for the first little bit of college, but then the strangest thing happened...
With baby Emerald, I was still in the fight. I changed my major to business so I wouldn’t have to worry about labs; those were my struggle areas anyway. Business went better—I had a knack and interest for business law, and the other majors classes seemed more or less like common sense. No matter how nice the teacher in Spreadsheets was, I was still at a complete loss in that one, because Excel and I are not on the friendliest of terms. This time, the hardest blows came from business math though. All throughout school, math wasn’t my strongest subject which left me with less and less confidence in it, until I started dreading going. Having a friend that was a math major and very pro-math, I should have just asked her for help. But I was embarrassed to be struggling, and at this point so tired.
When Gabriel came along, I couldn’t do it anymore. I had been holding on for four years and felt no closer to graduation than when I started. My student loans were piling up, and the great punchline of it all was that...I doubted I would be able to work. We were just figuring out that Gabe was autistic and was going to need a lot of support and care. Childcare costs are cost-prohibitive; one was bad enough, but two was even more out of reach, and here I am expecting a third. My grades slipped too far and I couldn’t summon the energy to care—there was already so much else that demanded my time, and it was not like college was going to help me. I left and never looked back.
I felt so self-conscious about it though. Like my opinion, my viewpoint, was worth less because I was just an uneducated housewife. The metric by which I judged myself, my grades, reflected the same inconsistency as I had ever achieved, but all I saw were those failures. From that I drew the conclusion that I was ignorant—I had peaked in what I could learn and that was the ballgame.
So when Amber went back and was doing well, I thought...why not. The worst thing I could waste is my time, and right now, I got a lot of it. I tossed my application into the ether...and got denied. They said my scores at LCU near the end were too low for acceptance into WGU, so I would have to go through WGU Academy first. It is a month-by-month program where you pay a small amount and take a few classes, basically teaches you how these online classes will go.
When I saw that rejection, I just wanted to take the L and go home. It reinforced all those bad thoughts, all those doubts I had about myself, and I had a very low tolerance for rejection or criticism. Michael and I talked about it though, and I decided...okay. I checked the Facebook page and found out a lot of students had to go through Academy; it wasn’t a personal slight, just a formality. Amber didn’t have to go through it though, so I was still very uncertain and sad about it. I enrolled anyway.
There is this class, I don’t remember what it was called, but it was required where you had to actually attend on zoom once a week for five weeks. It talked about study techniques, time management, how to organize and prioritize once you got into school so that you would be most set up for success. They also talked about mental blocks and self confidence issues, a lot about your mindset and how you handle disappointments. I didn’t know it, but this class would be very important to my continued success.
Academy was hard because I had two difficult classes I had to get through before I would be admitted to WGU. The first was Intro to Communications. It apparently did not transfer in from LCU because it had been 150 years since I took it and things have apparently changed since then. This was a study in overcoming my fears because while I could handle the final exam just fine, I had to record myself giving three speeches and publish them on YouTube. These videos are rough, guys. I am visibly shaking and my voice is cracking. The evaluators might have been able to tell as well because they graded leniently.
The second was Stats. I was facing head-on my biggest insecurity, math. Every day, I got up hours before anyone else was awake and studied in my little closet-office. I took and retook the practice quizzes provided again and again until I got 100%. I filled notebooks with my detailed notes and practice problems. I watched YouTube videos and used Khan academy; I had the kids “grade” additional work I found online and printed off.
I crushed the final exam.
After two months in Academy, I graduated and moved into WGU proper, feeling more capable. I could do this. Already I had tackled these two daunting courses and had prevailed; I was here to have fun and to learn, so there was no way I could fail unless I stopped having a good time. I applied for and received a scholarship so now I was getting paid to be at school—this freed me of all guilt associated with financial burden or the responsibility to translate this education into earnability. With that in mind, I picked education. It felt like it could help me in my work with REACH and navigating Gabriel’s special education needs.
WGU allows you to take as many courses as you want in a six-month term, and is competency-based which means you can test out of a class when you’re ready. It is a point of pride for me that out of all the tests in Academy and during my time at WGU, I didn’t ever fail or have to retake a test. That first term that started May 2021, I got 50 credits completed. I worked like a whirlwind, delighted in that feeling of productivity and achievement again. Remembering why I liked learning so much.
The second semester, I got through another 41 credits; combined with what I had already completed and what I transferred in, that was enough to graduate. I could have held on and did student teaching, but as quickly as I had finished, I was looking beyond now—maybe I could go in and get my masters. Or what about nursing? That could be helpful with the now three diabetics I have. The point was, now I felt like...I could. My potential wasn’t reached, it is only just blossoming.
And there is no end to what I can do.
--Andie
