If there is one thing I am no longer an amateur at, it would be getting bad news.
My story is a long and convoluted one, though everything looked so straight forward when I was young and naive. I grew up hearing the same propaganda the rest of you did. Or maybe some of you didn't. Maybe some of you grew up without a life already planned for you. You didn't have to suffer through the long spiel of how you'll go to a good University and graduate with a sensible degree and then get an average paying job.
I never noticed how much I thought this was the only course of action until it was no longer a real option for me. Honestly, a lot of the blame could fall on me and my propensity to procrastinate, but there are some things that are just out of our control.
Senior year of high school, I applied for three colleges, but I only had my heart set on one. That's what you're expected to do. In the average, well advertised life, the young potential graduate becomes an avid fan of their University of choice. Then, when they are inevitably accepted, they celebrate by buying excessive amounts of spirit wear that they will only really wear on important game days. With all this in mind, I chose VCU, a well respected arts college where I could hone my cinematic skills! I was so excited to receive their decision that I proudly opened it up in the middle of my house... and then promptly wished I hadn't.
So my 'favorite' school had denied me. I did what any melancholy teenager would do and I got in my car and drove to the nearest quiet area. "Okay," I reasoned, "So I can't go there, but maybe the other schools..."
I chose to be logical in that moment because all I'd grown up hearing and seeing was that you needed to go to a four year university, you needed to pick a degree with guaranteed jobs, you NEEDED to follow those simple steps. But when the other two letters came in, I couldn't convince myself to settle.
Liberty University accepted me. In fact, they seemed way too excited to bring me into the fold and shape me into an LU fan. I felt... I don't know what I felt, but I couldn't picture myself at LU, no matter how much the letter insisted I would fit in. So I declined.
George Mason University accepted me. Their level of enthusiasm was sad in comparison to LU and I knew in a heart beat that I couldn't spend four years there. So again, I declined.
And this left me in a grey area, where I couldn't see any new paths to follow because... well because I never planned to get lost. Everything had seemed so straight and narrow.
Yet, for every low, there must be a high. An option suddenly presented itself and, though it seemed like a bitter pill to swallow at the time, it turned out pretty bearable; Community College.
You may shudder to hear it; that anyone would choose community college over a 4 year school. At the time, I was abhorred. I grew up in a bubble where community college was for the dumb and the underachievers. Only people with no ambition went there. My friends were perplexed by my choice to attend and tried to talk me out of it. "You aren't stupid, you don't need to go there." they would say.
And I learned they were right, for the most part. I'm not stupid, but community college has been so much more than underachievers and lacking students. It's full of a variety of people with multitudes of reasons to be there. I can go on and on about the virtues of attending a community college, but I'll leave that for another day.
So I had set out on a new path and already the instructions were being rewritten for me. I would study there for two years, get my associates degree, and then transfer to any college I wanted! I was doing well, until I heard about Full Sail University. It sounds like a cheap online school, but it's actually a renowned media arts college. I could study there for two years and graduate with all the skills and knowledge I would need for a job in film.
Encouraged, I dropped my work load that spring from 5 classes down to just 2. Then, I learned more and more about the school and suddenly it didn't appeal to me. Of course, it's a great school and I've heard amazing reviews, but I knew I wouldn't make it in an environment so far from home and so brutal.
So I was set back a semester and would need two and a half years to graduate with my associates. Okay, I could handle that. I worked hard an entire year and made and lost friends, and along the way, I started to discover that my future would never be straight and narrow.
Life isn't a series of steps. Life is more like a cliff side. You can't see what's at the top from the bottom, but you know there's a ledge with an incredible view, so you choose to climb. You've never climbed this cliff before, and so as you go, each hand hold, each spot you place your foot, it's new and it's uncertain. You try to plan by looking up and ahead, but sometimes what you thought was a great foot hold turns out to be unstable or broken. And then sometimes, you're presented with a whole new path five feet to left, with a hundred new possibilities to factor in.
This week, I thought I'd finally found my next hand hold, only to look back up and see it had disappeared. I will graduate this fall with my associates in General Studies, but I will not be able to attend my college of choice in the spring.
Understandably, I was upset. Another year, wasted.
And yet, because of the person I've grown to be through my experiences, I feel immensely hopeful. I am faced with an entire semester to do with as I wish. There are more opportunities than ever before for me to pursue:
I can finally put real time and effort into my YouTube channel.
I can volunteer abroad and help underprivileged children.
I can apply for a new internship with any company I want.
What I thought was just another set-back has once again proven to be so much more than that; it's an abundance of opportunity.
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