Tangent

I got distracted writing my next post by the tangent I had to make to explain my total and complete unpreparedness for college. I tried to remove it for concision sake, but I couldn't. I felt too mad; the injustice of it still infuriates me. I cannot let it go, and so it has earned it's own place here, an explanation before moving on. 

My senior year in high school, nobody talked to me about applying for colleges or taking the standardized tests required to do so. I took the ACT blind. I only learned about college applications, because, come December, my classmates began wondering aloud whether they would get accepted and how soon would they know. Most of the application deadlines, it turns out, were December 1. BYU had a deadline later in winter, and so was the only school to which I applied.

The spring, my parents announced their separation and, later, divorce. During that time, Mom began seeing Bob and being secretive about it. When I asked her about it, she cut me off financially. "I don't think you have any right to criticize me if you're going to be taking my money." I had never had a job, and hadn't applied for scholarships or financial aid. I didn't know what to do. I started by getting a job in my local movie theater. The scholarship followed. Apparently, all incoming freshmen were automatically considered. 

When it came time to go to Utah that fall, my Dad decided to come too. My parents had been divorced since May, and he just kept living in a bedroom upstairs. Jason was in Provo, so Dad decided he'd go there. He packed a U-Haul, and I added my stuff, and we drove across the desert together. 

I moved into my apartment by myself. I had no help. I didn't get school clothes and my pantry stocked, like my sisters had. I was just kind of dumped and forgotten. Jason helped pay my rent. Friends gave me money for food. All because I had asked my mother about her affair.

I didn't go to orientation. I really should have. There was so much in my college career that would have been made easier had I understood the resources available to me. I didn't know about academic advisors, financial aid, free tutoring, testing out of courses, on-campus employment, or even withdrawing from a class. That alone, instead of getting an "incomplete," would have kept my scholarship, at the very least, for another year. 

There was so much I didn't know and, worse, I didn't know that I didn't know it. I fumbled and stumbled through my first two years. I fell through the cracks, and it made everything so much harder.

Just writing this, I feel so much anger. My parents just dumped me when I turned 18. I was an ignorant, overwhelmed kid, and they just didn't give a damn. They couldn't be bothered. I should have had help. I should have been taught where to go, whom to ask, how to study, how to manage time and money. But my parents were too selfish, and I was just one of the faceless masses in a large university. 

My college career would have been very different with a little adult help. My life would have been different.