Was University Worth It? Thoughts from a Non-Traditional Graduate

With the struggles this generation has had with finding work that matches their degree, many of us are asking ourselves if that university education was worth all the time, effort, and mountains of debt. Well, I’ll break down my own experience and the things I got out of my own undergraduate and graduate university experience and hope that you can take something for yourselves.

First, my disclaimer is that my college experience was not traditional. I went to a junior college, then transferred to a local university while living at home. Then I applied for Clinical Psychology Ph.D programs for two years and failed to get in one. As it turns out, they are extremely competitive. I then went back to the local university and earned my master’s degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling. Now, I’m not working in my field for various reasons which I described in a previous post here. I do hope to work in my field one day in the future if things were to change.

Don’t Be Afraid to Start at Community College

My first bit of advice is that there is nothing wrong with a local community college or junior college. Often when we attend community colleges, they are near our homes and our support systems. Staying near your support system can be extremely beneficial if you struggle with any form of disability as well as anxiety and depression. Mental illness is something you should never struggle with alone.

There are so many reasons why this is an excellent option. The schedules and professors are usually more relaxed in this setting, so you can dip your toes into the water without feeling overwhelmed right away. Prerequisite courses are also straight forward to transfer to a university if that is your goal. If university transfer isn’t your end goal, then community college is still an excellent option. Many of these colleges have certificate programs and associates degrees for computer programming, networking, nursing, welding, industrial maintenance, cosmetology, and so many more.

There are several situations in which a community college may not be the best start for you though.

• Financial Aid: Most universities offer scholarships for ACT/SAT scores, sports and other extra-curricular activities, and others that you would not qualify for if you went to a community college before university. Though most community colleges are affordable compared to universities, you have to consider your ultimate goal in this decision.
• Location: If you don’t live near a community college or junior college, that option may not fit your needs.
• Experience: If you’re looking for the “college experience” with campus life, freshman events, sororities and fraternities, sporting events, etc., then you may want to go straight to a university. Some community colleges can offer aspects of this experience, but a university generally offers a wider range of students, courses, activities, and experiences overall.

Disability Support Staff/Special Populations

If you’re dealing with a disability whether it be physical or psychological, I highly recommend that you visit the disability support office at your prospective school. They will set up a file with you outlining the accommodation that you need to succeed. They will communicate with your professors what you need in class. I highly recommend that you personally speak with each of your professors, but respect and kindness are not always a given with each professor, so it is important to have someone who can back you up if you should encounter frustrations along the way. See my previous post about what I tell professors and about my personal accommodations and experiences here.

Some accommodations that you can expect are:

• Note takers
• Extra time for testing in a distraction free area
• Large print notes/copies of presentations/copies of board work
• Interpreters for the deaf
• Space for anyone requiring a wheelchair/other special seating as needed
• Support staff to escort you should you have a need for that
• And so many other various accommodations

Lifelong Friendships

Time at university allows for self-discovery during which you will learn your own dislikes, likes, needs, and goals. You will find people whose goals and likes match or complement your own. Some of these people become more than just someone you study with. They become someone you struggled with, someone you experimented with, someone you succeeded with. These experiences will bond you to one or two very close friends. Some of my closest, deepest friendships are those that were forged during my time at university.

Keep in mind that every friend you make during this period of your life will not become a lifelong friend, but that is part of the learning process as well. This period allows you to discern between the types of people you want in your life and the ones you would rather not include.

Cultural, Spiritual, and Emotional Education

During the university experience, you will hopefully be exposed to people from varying cultures, levels of spirituality and religion, and backgrounds. Meeting people who are different from you should be viewed as a chance to educate yourself and expand as a person. Learning from the experiences of others is how we expand our thought patterns, practice empathy, and make decisions about who we want to become. From these new people, you can learn to discuss differing beliefs and values which will help you identify your own value system.

Expand Your Personal Interests

Throughout your time at university, you will be exposed to new hobbies, interests, and activities. This exposure will allow you to discover what you enjoy doing. Universities and community colleges often offer courses like pottery, photography, visual design, drafting, music, cake decorating, painting, and other various courses on creative arts. If you have time to take any of these courses, you may discover a hobby that you will continue throughout your life, or you may even discover a career path. These days are all about the side hustle, and most of these involve performing services for others such as art design, photography, social media management, and other creative activities.

Creative arts are not the only hobbies and activities you may discover. Sports and games are also hobbies that many pursue in some fashion throughout their adult lives. As you meet new people and see new needs, you may also find inspiration for business ideas or a niche for an invention or service.

Who Are You Going to Be?

University is that time where you are absorbing all that surrounds you, and this education encompasses so much more that what you learn from the classroom and books. You learn how to interact with your peers; you learn that sometimes life isn’t how you expected it would be; and you learn that your choices matter. We don’t magically go to university and return as the person we will be forever, and this is a lesson that I’ve learned during my non-traditional six plus years’ experience.

The most important things I’ve learned are thus:

• Always, always, always give someone the benefit of the doubt, because you never know their struggle or how their morning went.
• Empathy is a skill some are born with, but it can be learned. It is invaluable when working with others.
• Vulnerability and openness are NOT weakness. They require trust in humanity and should not be met with judgment and aggression.
• Don’t be afraid to take a new path, happiness is where you make it and never where you expect it to be.
• Take chances and make mistakes. In your mistakes, you will learn the most powerful lessons of your life.
• Never view change as settling. Life is in constant flux and so are you. Embrace change and make it your own.
• Stop comparing yourself to others, especially based on their social media. You are so much more than what you post online. You are NOT a simple being and neither is anyone else.

There is so much to be learned in this world from class, reading, those around us, mistakes, and chances taken. Don’t stop trying new things and always stay curious.

Danielle Moulds

Struggling After Graduation: Imposter Syndrome and Blindness

So, I graduated. Now what?

That thought was the single thought running through my head after graduation. The whole experience felt so underwhelming that I was sure I must be missing some important step. Or worse, I was wondering when someone would approach me and say, “Oh, we need your diploma back. Sorry.” These feelings are all part of imposter syndrome, which I have experienced throughout several points in my life, and I am not alone. Imposter syndrome is an actual psychological phenomenon that involves feelings of doubt and the fear that one will be exposed as an imposter or fraud. It feels absolutely insane to be receiving a graduate degree and in the next moment think to yourself, “I don’t deserve this,” or, “I didn’t really earn this like everyone else, did I?”

Who’s to say what parts of my history or my childhood led me to feel that I’m such a failure or an “imposter.” The point is really that so many people are feeling this way right now. What do we do about this to improve our confidence, our feeling of satisfaction, or that feeling that we have successfully accomplished such a huge goal? All our lives we were told to get a degree. “Education is power,” they said, and you need that power to be successful. But here we are with our degrees feeling powerless.

Struggling to Find Your Place

So, what’s the next step? Where do we go from here? Some of us have jobs and new goals. Some of us are doing just fine. Some of us are even happy with our lives. But then, here I am. Like many others before me, I have this degree (or advanced degree in my case), and I’m not even sure if I’ll be able to utilize it. Was I warned about the many steps and struggles to finding a job? Was I warned about the state of the job market in my area? Not really. These are the things we all learned as we neared graduation. Just ask any one of my classmates. I am not alone in this feeling, and neither are you.

 

Blind and Working or Blind and Unemployed

This struggle goes even deeper for those of us who are blind or visually impaired. We struggle to find reliable transportation even in areas that have public transit or paratransit. We struggle to earn the respect of our employers and co-workers. We struggle with our own self-doubt. We struggle to get the reasonable accommodations that are granted to us by the Americans with Disabilities Act in the US. We struggle to even do the job some days. Some of us must work twice as hard as our normally sighted counterparts because of these struggles. Based on statistics from the National Federation of the Blind, the unemployment rate for those who are blind or visually impaired is around 62%, which further demonstrates the limitations of blindness on making a living.

The barriers to work for this population are varied as well, and what one person struggles with, another may manage well. The variances among albinism alone sometimes contribute to those feelings of imposter syndrome and self-doubt. We find ourselves thinking, “Well, Dave can drive and has a full-time job. I must be missing something obvious,” or, “Jane moved to a bigger city and she has so much independence. Why can’t I just move?” I have struggled with these feelings myself. Social media often shows us the successes of others without the ongoing fight, which can lead us to believe that others don’t struggle. Everyone struggles with something. Everyone faces a daily battle with something. The guy with albinism who has enough vision to drive may struggle with a serious lack of confidence or he may have a job that makes him feel miserable and taken for granted. The girl who lives in a bigger city may spend three hours of her time both ways on her commute to work. The important thing to remember here is that though you and your neighbor have different struggles, you both have them.

What Can You Do Today?

So, really, what’s next? We need to find ourselves now, and we need to decide what is best for us and our families as we progress toward our life goals. Start there.

What are your goals? What small goals can you set for yourself to accomplish on a daily and weekly basis? These will be your short-term goals and can include:

• Becoming more positive by finding one thing to be thankful for each day.
• Learning to tidy up more by picking up that one item on your floor or cleaning up and organizing one small shelf each day.
• Becoming more informed by reading one article, watching one video, or listening to one podcast a day.
• Becoming better at your skill or art by practicing once daily for five or ten minutes. You can add time as this becomes more of a habit.

The options are endless. The key here is to choose manageable steps that you can implement each day. Each day that you take one of those small steps, you are building toward your goal. These short-term goals are a fantastic place to start and will allow you to see immediate results. Immediate results are satisfying and will help to motivate you toward bigger and more long-term goals.

One of my favorite expressions from working with addiction is, “one day at a time.” That is how we who are suffering from imposter syndrome, overwhelming fear of failure, and lack of direction shall take our lives. Take my word for it, this one will set you on the right path if you’re feeling overwhelmed. In the meantime, I’ll be here. Feel free to reach out. You can take your life back and feel in control again.

Stay curious.

Danielle Moulds

Pain and Worries about an Internship.

So, the teeth pain sucks. I’m hoping it fades with time but I’m guessing it won’t and that, rather, I’ll get used to it. At least practice has helped with the flossing. I ordered a WaterPik Water Flosser (Ultra), and it should be here tomorrow. It looks like a fantastic alternative, so I have something to look forward
to.

So, other than that, I’ve been thinking about my education and future career. I’m a psychology major at Mississippi State University-Meridian. I love the school and my classes, but I really would absolutely love to do this summer internship in 2014. I will have the required classes, and I’m intelligent and excellent at figuring out how to work around my vision issues, but I’m worried that I will have difficulty mostly when it comes to working with actual patients. This internship is with a mental hospital, which I forgot to mention. I plan to ask the professor that does the internship more about it, but I’m curious if anyone has ever been through an internship similar or anything like this. I would love some extra imput.

Danielle

World Teacher Day

October 5th is World Teacher Day and my love for the profession makes mainly good thoughts come to mind at the sound of the word ‘teacher’ However today i wanted to write about a not so good memory, after all it’s one of the things that makes me…me. It has served to build me and inspired me to raise my standards beyond the tip of my nose, so to speak.
When my parents moved me out of private school after the first two or so years of my school life they moved me into a fantastic school with fantastic, dedicated teachers.

And then there was her.

My first teacher at that school, when my mother introduced me to this woman she burst out in laughter and not the ‘oh what a cute child’ kind more like the ‘oh how cute, she thinks THIS kid can learn!” kind.

My mother being the tactful warrior that she is politely asked what was funny. There was a quick ‘oh nothing’ draw back from this woman.

Of course…it did not get better from there.

This woman made my school life hell. I was  a late reader and she tormented me for it with snide remarks and the usual lack of attention. She would pinch me consistently during glass time when my head was down (trying to see i imagine) i suppose she thought i wasn’t paying attention.
When i began to foster my love for writing by drawing out my stories, she made me out to be a pervert, yelling at me because i ‘did nothing but sat there and drew men and women together’

Luckily i did not begin to hate drawing because of her.

When it was time for assembly of the school, she would INSIST i stood with everyone else, out in the sun, no shade in sight. I remember those hellish mornings…morning and often mid day caribbean sun burning my skin, unable to see because of the brightness of the day.

I remember a teacher moving me out of the sun once but at some point this teacher insisted that i stand in the sun just like everyone else.

When i recount these stories to my mother she asks me why i never told her. A seven year old child being picked on by an adult, even more so, a teacher, the person that you believe at that age has the answers to all of lifes’ questions? When she hurts you and bullies you and makes a spectacle of you like that before the world? It can get rooted so deep you feel that this is what the world thinks not just her.

That you are a burn, undeserving of any kind of compromise from the world. You do not want to draw attention to it, you just want it all the be over, you want to be invisible. You don’t speak of this kind of abuse, you just wait for it to stop or for you to grow big so that it can no longer reach you…

I grew big but it can still reach me… You see that kind of thing can root it self so deep in your self esteem it reaches you from the inside of yourself…Then how do you escape it?

You can’t

Now you’ve got to live with it because it’s part of what makes you who you are.

I don’t hate this woman. I will tell you what i do hate though. I hate the way she cheerily says hello to me now, when i happen to pass her in the street. How she treats me like she some how deserves any kind of credit for a sliver of any of my successes no matter how minute. Oh the things that well in me to say to her at moments like that, i just find myself staring, confused. Even more so realizing that situations like that could very well be possible for my present health dilemmas since i didn’t even KNOW what sunblock was back then.

Stop telling people you taught me, you didn’t teach my you tortured me.

I was observing a teacher sometime this week, with a blind little boy. It was during an orientation and mobility lesson. When you are blind or low visioned and you step into a hole its like that feeling you get when you miss a step, except multiplied by a gazillion.

This little boy was going through that time. He was so scared he would walk, his both hands stretched out in front of him, following his teacher’s voice “come to me baby” this strong and in control teacher was saying to this five year old. He took small steps, he wanted to trust…then he got to the hole and i watched his entire body stiffen in fear as he thought he was going to fall off the edge of the earth and hurt everything.

“You’re fine” his teacher said “I’m here” his teacher said. “Come” his teacher said.

He dared to step again and then dared not.

“It’s fine baby” his teacher said

“I’m scared….” the little boy said

“Just come to me” said his teacher

Then that child  did something i understand all too wel;. he crouched to the ground and tried desperately to use his hands to see what was in his way. How deep was the whole? Just how frightening was this?

i found myself biting my lip then. Somehow i remember doing this, i don’t know when. I had a sudden flash back of my mother telling me that as a child i had told her that it was so bright coming home from school sometimes, in the afternoon as the sun went down. The light would catch my eyes directly as a descended the hill from school but i proudly told her it was okay because i just got down and felt my way down the steps because i couldn’t see.

As she recounted this story i realized, the slight pain still noticeable in her voice, that me telling her that then had filled her with so much sorrow and regret what i had so strongly, so openly said. It never bothered me, i was so proud to have over come! She was so sad that i had and would forever continue to struggle in ways others did not have to.

Now, i was looking at this little boy, i saw how it looked. How scared he looked, how scared i must have looked when i had done it. How ill equipped he appeared to handle the world..

I wanted to run to him and say ‘it’s okay! I’ve got you! I’ll protect you from this scary world! I will guide you away from the holes in the road, trust me!” like I’m sure my mother wished when i had told her the story that she could have run into that memory to me of a busy city street, lift me out of that fear and take me home.

i said to my co worker (the reassuring teacher) “Oh my gosh that is so scary…do you know how scary that is!?”

He said to me “Yes, i know.  But i want him to learn to explore it. To explore that fear. To test with his toe and to get THROUGH it!””

His eyes never left the five year old, who, upon his teachers request, had stood and stopped trying to grab at his problem. The student did not know, could not understand that though he was not being touched, he had so many caring eyes watching over him.

That that tiny shallow hole that seemed as wide and as deep and the grand canyon would not hurt him. Not under the watchful eyes of his teachers. And even if it did? It would be a VERY short distance to the ground followed by an onslaught of loving (most likely more so by the female teacher present aka me lol)

Well, of course the student was not hurt. Not on our watch. And after lots of repeated ‘But I’m scared” and “its okay, I’m here, come to me” He reached the open arms of his big strong reassuring teacher who took him, little inexperienced palms into his big reassuring guiding palms, squeezed lightly, hugged him and said “Now lets try again, lets go a little farther, lets push for more success. You can do it, i believe in you” (well that part was more in body language and dialect)

Don’t get me wrong, i am not saying i expected or wanted hugs and kisses from the teacher i described i had. I am only trying to illustrate how a true teacher, SpecEd. or no, instills trust, not despair.

I really regret not saying so much of this stuff to my parents when it was happening to me. So if you are being bullied. if ANY teacher is making you feel like you are worth less than others in ANYWAY please speak up.

Speaking as a teacher i am telling you without a doubt that NO TEACHER has the right to make ANY student feel less of a person. Speak out! Don’t let roots of dispair and self loathing be planted in your will.

That is not what teachers are for.

As for my old crap teacher? Everyday, when i get dressed in my suit and i make a difference, as a teacher, no matter how small? I think many things. One of the things i think in moments like those are dedicated to people like her and with a smirk it goes a little something like this: