This is going to be full of things that I am ashamed of, embarrassed by, and things I haven't told anyone. I really want to get it off my chest though.
I have been putting off going back to school for WAY too long. I hated talking about it, and to be honest I was embarrassed that I never had the motivation to finish school before. I was embarrassed that kids I used to babysit were getting their college degrees before me. I was embarrassed that my friends all had degrees, some of them even had Masters. Boy, did that make me feel pretty lame! I made excuse after excuse, but in reality I just wasn't ready to dedicate myself to school until now.
I went to BYU-Idaho for two semesters right out of high school (literally right out...I started 2 weeks after graduating, and I was still 17). I did pretty well my summer semester, but fall semester I started suffering from really bad insomnia. I wouldn't fall asleep until about 4 or 5 in the morning, and as a result I couldn't get up for my 8 am classes. I tried taking Melatonin, which helped me fall asleep a little earlier, but not much. Missing a bunch of classes lead to me falling really far behind in school, to the point where I just sort of gave up. I also became really homesick and it was making me depressed. I have told VERY few people this information. After that semester, I went home and stayed there for about 6 months before moving to California to live with my grandma.
She said that if I was going to be living with her, I had to go to school so we signed me up and I gave it another shot. Like at BYU-I, I did well for a semester and then started losing motivation. I couldn't pick a major. I tried out a couple different ones (English, Liberal Arts, Journalism) but I couldn't find one I was passionate about. I decided if I wasn't passionate I didn't want to waste my time. I was working part-time, and would rather spend my spare time hanging out with friends, not doing homework for classes that I didn't care about.
I was both surprised and frustrated with my college experience thus far. I had always been a pretty good student. In high school, I definitely could have done a lot better (I skipped a lot of school, especially senior year, and was pretty lazy with homework and studying) but I still managed to graduate with honors. I expected that I would do well in college too, and I expected to love it. It wasn't that I was not capable of doing well, it wasn't that college was too hard for me--I just could not find the motivation to do it. I was so envious of my friends who knew exactly what they wanted to be and what they wanted to study. The things that I were good at unfortunately were not things I wanted to study.
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Ever since I stopped going to school, it has popped into my mind very frequently that I should return. I need a degree, I need to go back. I don't know how I managed to push that thought to the back of my mind for so many years. I used every excuse: I don't have any money for school, I don't have time because I work full-time, I don't know what I want to study, I'm getting too old--I don't want to be the oldest one in my classes, I move a lot so I would have to wait for residency to kick in (1 year--dumbest rule ever) before I can start, etc.
Finally, after years of silencing that voice in my head, I decided I absolutely could not put it off any longer. Even though it is embarrassing to me that I am 27 years old and do not have a college degree of any kind, I need to do this. Some day I will have children and I want to set a good example for them. I need to do this to feel proud of myself.
My college credits are kind of all over the place, so I am starting over completely new, as a freshman. I will be getting my associates of healthcare administration/medical records through University of Phoenix, and then my plan is to get my Diagnostic Radiology BS, hopefully at Boise State. It is LONG overdue, and I know this is the worst way I could have done things but I can't change the mistakes of my past. I am very excited to be in school again and cannot wait to learn new things!
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