The Day I Graduated from College and What it Meant to Me

The evening I graduated from college was a pleasant evening in Southern California. My husband and a friend of mine attended the ceremony with me. He gave me a Garfield in a graduation gown and she gave me a bouquet of daisies. I no longer have the daisies, but I still have the Garfield.

I sat near the front of the graduating class while they sat what seemed to be a continent away. When I stood on the stage I could barely see them through the crowd.

There was a surprising number of graduates in attendance. There were hundreds of us. It was more customary for students to just transfer to a four year institution than to graduate from a community college. I needed to graduate before transferring to the four year university of my choice. I still needed my high school equivalency.

I attended summer school from fifth grade to high school, so I had more than enough credits when it came to high school graduation. But when I started my senior year I was given the opportunity to take my government class in the second semester so that I could take piano in the first semester. The class had never been offered before.

The only class I needed to graduate was that one government class. But before I could finish it I injured my back and missed most of the final semester of my senior year.

My counselor told me to drop out of school and take night school with everyone's grandmothers. She neglected to tell me that I could have taken summer school and graduated the next year, which was what all the other counselors advised.

I didn't make it through night school because I was required to take a minimum of two classes in order to graduate. I felt like I was being punished.

Through the years I kept going back to school where ever we were living. I racked up an impressive amount of credits in a wide array of subjects through an equally impressive number of schools both two year and four year institutions, both public and private. But I never got that degree until we moved to Southern California and circumstances were such where I was able to quit work and just go to school.

I hadn't been able to go to school without working since I was twelve years old. This was the first time where I could just concentrate on going to school and finishing without any distractions.

The first thing I did when I entered school was to go to my counselor and request a battery of tests to see what I was really good at and what I truly preferred to do. I also told her the situation with my lack of a high school diploma.

This counselor was one of my best allies at the school. The track she gave me focused my direction so that I was able to complete in two years. In order to receive my high school equivalency I just needed one extra political science class and to graduate with my AA.

The tests helped us to choose my direction. We decided that if I majored in art with the intent of teaching it at the community college level I would satisfy both my artistic need to express myself and that tendency to help and to serve others.

She helped me with less than sympathetic teachers. She also showed me how to take a full load without actually making it heavy by taking classes that although they were solid classes, they weren't hard classes to take.

During the second year of school I developed a dental infection. Our dentist gave me antibiotics for it but he couldn't touch it until our insurance took effect. I had to wait three months to be covered. I spent half of the first semester and most of the second semester with a low grade fever. I got straight A's that year and was nominated for two awards. I received one of those awards.

It took me thirteen years to be able to stand on that platform. As I stood there it was hard to believe that I had actually managed to finally graduate. I was no longer a high school dropout and I was also a college graduate.

Sources:

http://chs.chicousd.org/

http://www.riohondo.edu/