the road to the last day of college... part 2

after transferring to a state school for my junior year and then returning to the women’s college so i could finish where i had started, i entered my fifth year of college as a senior.
days before graduation, my senior seminar professor invited our class over to her house to celebrate the end of our time together. she was as nice to me as everyone else and not once during the entire night did she pull me aside to tell my of my impending doom. you see, she had given me a failing grade for her class (which i definitely deserved).
on the day of graduation, i was woken up by my mom with the phone in her hand. it was the dean of the college and she wanted to speak to me! i cleared my throat, expecting her to ask me to do something special for her at graduation because i was just an exceptional person. instead, she quietly informed me that i would not be getting my degree that day. I had failed my senior seminar class and that grade had been enough to pull the gpa of my major below a 2.0. she said that i could still walk at graduation if i wanted to, but i would not be able to go on stage to shake the president’s hand or get my diploma. i didn’t know what to think, but i did know that there was no way that i was going to that graduation ceremony. i quickly thanked her and hung up the phone.
i was mad. i was mad at my senior seminar professor for not pulling me aside at her house that day, i was mad at myself for letting my grades get so bad that one class could ruin it all for me. i was humiliated that i would have to tell anyone what had happened. then the floodgates opened and i couldn’t stop crying. my parents came into my room and i somehow managed to tell them what the dean had said. i think they were honestly shocked. they let me cry for a few hours and then asked what i wanted to do about the party that they were having that night. i was too prideful to let them tell anyone the truth, so we actually had the party and just danced around the subject when any of the guests (other than family) asked how the graduation ceremony had been that morning. it was painful and i ended up going up to my room early and crying some more.
that weekend, my parents and i discussed my options. i could just give up, leave the college without a degree and become a real estate agent; i could go to another college and finish there; or i could go back to the women’s college and do what needed to be done to graduate. i decided on the latter choice and that monday, my mom and i met with one of the deans of the college to strategize. the dean told me that i had demonstrated great character in coming back to finish and she knew that i had what it took to graduate. she suggested two classes to take during fall semester and told me that i needed to make an A and a B in order to graduate. that dean was the first person in college who had ever taken any academic interest in me and i revered her for it.
it was excruciating for me to show back up that fall semester and have everyone ask why i was there. i told a few the truth, but others i just jokingly told that i couldn’t get enough of the place. terrified that i would wind up without a college degree, i worked very hard in both classes. i read the homework ahead of time, contributed in class and worked on my papers and essays in advance so that i could turn in real, finished products. classmates asked me questions when they didn’t understand our readings and i wondered why i hadn’t taken the time to care before now. rather than just hope that my grades were okay, i would follow up with my professors and talk to them about my papers while i was writing them. i discovered that i truly enjoyed school. i made two A’s that semester and ended up with two professors who were genuinely proud of me! i was proud of myself, too, and that semester will forever be a memory that i turn to for inspiration and motivation. it was an awfully painful semester for my pride, but i will be forever thankful that God let me get to that failing point so i would have to work hard at achieving something. he didn’t just let me glide through school, because he loved (loves) me and didn’t want me making the same mistakes in more important areas of my life later on down the road.