There was a time when what stood in between me and a Bachelor’s Degree were 65 credits, nearly $70,000, and eight years.
After dropping a class that didn’t fit in with my budget, then another class that didn’t fit in with my schedule, taking off one semester after my daughter was born, then taking off another semester when we moved into a new house, then taking off another semester when Emmett was due to be born, then showing up for class even though I had hand, foot, and mouth disease, showing up for class about 12 hours after I was discharged from the ER, finding out I had to take four more credits than I thought because I needed another Fine Arts credit, finagling with my professor to have her teach me a course independently of the rest of the class so that it fit my work schedule, showing up in the morning for early classes before work – while wondering how I’d get in my 40 hours of work that week – and showing up late in the evening, after dinner, because that was the only time I could fit in a class, and not being able to say goodnight to my kids that night, worrying that my dying Chevy Cavalier wouldn’t get me from my job to my class, answering my phone during class because my wife was worried about our sick child, or because a coworker had a question, studying late at night, on vacations, and during breaks at work, strategically arranging my course schedule to maximize my tuition reimbursement from my employer, and going through the annoyance of having to submit just the precise documentation on a user-unfriendly site needed to get said reimbursement, I slowly chiseled away at everything that stood in between me and a 4-year degree.
Now all that stands in between me and my degree is clicking this submit button, which will upload my final paper for my final course to my final professor, and which I plan to do promptly…
The graduation ceremony is Saturday.