i applied to graduate

30/11/2025

this is a #vent post where i'm going to be pretty negative towards myself regarding my university experience. i mention this a few times during but i want to make it absolutely clear at the top that these feelings are directed solely at myself. i do not and would never think less of anyone for having a similar experience as me!

my post-secondary career has been messy to say the least!! i started pretty strong right out of high school. i enrolled in a history mjor with the intention of going to teachers college and becoming a teacher after. i had decided i wanted to be a teacher in seventh grade and it had guided me all through high school... i always felt very lucky to have decided on my path early on when so many of my friends and peers were struggling. but ultimately things didn't work out quite that way!

i found myself gradually falling behind my university classmates by failing courses here and there. it wasn't that i was ever bad at school by any means, when i tried my best and produced real work i actually always did very well, but i lacked motivation and discipline and left a lot of work either half-assed or not turned in at all. honestly, it feels kind of a pathetic to admit! i've always struggled with my mental state and if i had heard someone else tell me the kind of things i'd struggled with, i'd never in a million years think lesser of them or blame them... but i guess it's always different when it's yourself, you know? i can't help but thinking things like maybe if i'd just been a little bit stronger or tried a bit harder... it's a tough thing to reconcile with when all is said and done.

anyway. i was still in a pretty good position to graduate at least a year or two later than my cohort, but in my third year i realized i didn't really want to be a teacher at all. after rethinking what kind of field i wanted to go into, i switched my degree to a double major in history and english. i had been gunning for an english minor to this point and already had most of the history degree completed, so it seemed like the best way to sacrifice as little credits as possible while moving to a degree more in-line with my new future goals. but it didn't save all of them and i still ended up with a bunch of credits rendered void. but even though that would extend things further, i'd always excelled way more at english than history, so i felt pretty hopeful that it wasn't too much of a setback.

and then 2020 came!!! i'm not going to say anything on all that because it feels like i'm making excuses now, but you can imagine how that went for me, especially paired with watching my original cohort graduate without me.

all this to say my degree ended up taking me another four years to complete than expected. i've tried really hard to stay confident and positive through this but its honestly been really difficult when i compare my life to those of my friends my age... everyone in my life has always been really encouraging but there's something so embarrassing about it. i'm not happy to be graduating like i thought i would be. i'm glad to be done of course, but i feel like the only thing i'm left with is this big shameful part of my life that i'm about to spend years running away from.

i used to feel really relieved and free whenever i'd finish a semester but these last few years i've just felt tired. like i've been dragging myself to the finish line half-dead. when i told my mom i had sent in my graduation application she said something about how good it must feel and i didn't have the heart to tell her otherwise. i'm just really, really embarrassed. aside from my family, my boyfriend, and another close friend who went through a similar post-secondary experience, i don't think i'll even tell people in my personal life. i don't want to be congratulated or celebrate at all. really i just feel pathetic!! eight years and i don't even have a respectable gpa to show for it!! what have i been doing all this time!!!

i'm worried about being out of school for the first time too. i spent so long focused on teaching that i don't really know anything about my new career aspirations and i don't really know anyone i can ask. my school does offer a certificate program for it that includes an internship proponent, and if i can't find work in my field i'll definitely go try and go back for that. but the idea of having to go back again is... i'm SO tired. i'm worn out just thinking about it.

in any case. sorry for this dreary update! it's just something i wanted to get off my chest. when i wrote last time about working on living a cuter life i felt really good and motivated but lately all the steam seems to have cleared and i'm entering a low mood again. which was probably spurred on by all this to be fair... i hope to come back next time with a more positive entry looking back at 2025! including my halloween costume i never got a chance to show off!! for all my faults, i am an optimistic at heart so i'm still hopeful that maybe i'll come to feel lighter when i am actually finished and the holidays come around. at the end of the day, there's still things to look forward to!

ghosting - mother mother