Throughout the semester in my English 203 class, there were always these thoughts in my mind, “Am I ok today?” and “Is this really WHAT I want?” These two questions rise in my mind every day now… The first question rises in my mind due to the blog posts we had to complete for this class. Some days, I didn’t have the motivation, or even the slightest idea of what I wanted to write. I would write down ideas after ideas of a blog post. They would be deleted and then that would be undone. The second question would rise in my mind due to the thought of dropping out lingering in my mind every day I would be stepping foot on the Geneseo Campus. The reason for that would be… I am not my true, real self when I step foot on campus. When I’m here, I do feel happy. Don’t get me wrong, the scenery here is gorgeous, and the people here are amazing. The thought of dropping out, scares me a bit. I am talking about dropping out because, well, I’m not myself today.
When I first started college, which was right out of high school, I was expanding my horizons, going on my own path of school, doing what I wanted. I started this journey off at Genesee Community College. I was going to be graduating late, which was fine. I enjoyed my time at GCC, it was a lot of fun, I met a lot of people that are now my close friends. I finished at GCC a year ago in the Fall, and I went off on my own path again. I applied to 3 colleges that offered my major of choice. I applied to Brockport, Buffalo State, and Geneseo. Applying to Geneseo was a decision I made on the spur of the moment, I wasn’t expecting to get accepted at all. A month or so passed once I applied to these three, and I never heard anything from Brockport. Buffalo State and Geneseo reached out to me, they wanted my transcript and some other documents. A week later I got accepted into Geneseo, the day before we were going to go to Open House. I cried that day when I got the acceptance letter in the mail, my mom cried, my dad too, and I never see him cry. All three of us were surprised and over the moon that I was accepted into my dream school.
The ball got rolling in January 2019, I was put into a total of 6 classes, which was a lot for me. I’ve never been in that many classes at one time before, unless it was in high school. Once my plan was filled out and ready, I had to wait to start the semester. Here we go. I was nervous, I was scared, I had no idea what the future held for me. When I started in the School of Education, they pushed onto me to apply to the School of Ed., so I did. I got accepted, and I had to keep my GPA above a 2.75, I told myself, “Oh, that won’t be that hard.” I did it at GCC, why can’t I do it here? There was a lot of pressure on my shoulders. Classes at Geneseo were a lot more harder than I anticipated, they have a big reputation for their Education majors, they are known for them. The classes were fun, I haven’t laughed as hard as I did when I was working with fellow Education major students.
Once the semester ended, and finals came around the corner, I knew I wasn’t going to do so well. I struggled through midterms, and through the rest of the semester. I questioned myself a lot throughout the semester, and I kept asking myself, “Do I want to put myself through this?” I ended the semester with the lowest GPA I’ve ever had, and I failed 2 classes. I decided to take one of those classes over the summer, I grew a lot during the summer, I learned a lot about myself during this summer. I learned how great of a writer I am, and I still am learning on how to grow on that. Since I didn’t do so well in the Spring 2019, I was dropped from the Education classes I was scheduled in due to my GPA, and had to take general education classes. I was kept in the classes that wasn’t pertaining to my major, English 203 was one of them.
English was my concentration as an Education major. I’ve always found English an amazing subject to look into. I’ve loved it since high school. I’ve always been the bookworm, and the one to expand my thinking to great lengths. Throughout my first 2 weeks in this class, and in my other 3 classes, the thought popped into my head on if I should change my major, so I looked into it. I decided, as of September 2019, I would be changing my major to Psychology. It was set in stone, I made up my mind. The change was nice. I do miss my Education friends and my classes, but Psychology is so interesting, and I had full support from my family.
The thought that was in my mind throughout this whole semester, should I drop out once I’m done with this semester? Is that something that I want to do? I have done a lot of thinking throughout this semester, especially these last 3 months, I have decided that it is in my best interest of my mental, and emotional health that I will be dropping out of college. I am going to be going out into the workforce for a while. I have full support of my family, and I over the moon grateful for that.
“Thank you,” I said. “I came back to this place to find something, to connect with something lost, to reunite if not with my whole self, then with a piece of it. What I’ve discovered is that this thing is not here. In fact, it is nowhere. I have learned that my name is not my name. It seems you all know me and nothing could be further from the truth and yet you know me better than I know myself, perhaps better than I can know myself. My mother is buried not far from this auditorium, and there are no words on her headstone. As I glance out now, as I feel the weight of this trophy in my hands, as I stand like a specimen before these strangely strange faces, I finally know what should be written on that stone. It should say what mine will say: I AM NOT MYSELF TODAY.”- Percival Everett.
This quote is taken from Percival Everett’s book, I am not Sidney Poitier. I find myself being like Not Sidney in a couple ways. Not Sidney went back to some place he had a lot of connections with, he wanted to find peace and solidarity there. I continued into my college career after earning my Associates to see what I could handle. I wanted to push my limits, I wanted to try a 4 year school in a way. I was testing the waters. I found quick that I pushed myself too far, and I scared myself on how bad I did. Geneseo is definitely not like GCC. Geneseo pushes you, Geneseo makes you work for what you want, Geneseo tests you in many ways. Change is good for the heart, and when I came to Geneseo, that’s what I was honestly looking for. I expected so much out of myself to put towards Geneseo, and I didn’t do that. I failed myself, but I learned so much about myself in many ways.
When I’m on Campus at Geneseo, there’s days where I really don’t feel like myself that day, and there’s other days where I’m excited to be on campus and see my friends. I’ve learned that my true self isn’t here on the Geneseo campus, sadly. As of right now, I really don’t know where my true self is. I know that part of it is in the Education major, and working with children is my passion, that’s where my roots are. I uprooted myself when I changed my major. I remember my mom telling me, “You’re going to end up going to Education. It’s your passion, that’s where you’re meant to be.” I think that’s where I’m meant to be too. When I leave, I am going to be going back to my roots. I am planning on looking for jobs in the Education world. I may not be able to be a full fledged teacher like I dreamed of, but I will be able to still work with children, and that’s something to look forward to.
“The secret to change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” ~ Socretes