It seems like it’s been a really long while since I’ve done a College Life update. And a lot of things have happened, a lot of disappointment and frustrations and perhaps a light at the end of the road?
So as some of you may know, I went to an animal care program at a local college. It started off okay, but when the pandemic hit my marks took a steep fall as well. There were a lot of things that also happened on the admin side of things at the school, and it didn’t help.
I’m not here to bash the college or anything but it was frustrating with everything that happened, and it kind of soured me to the program. I ended up failing some classes and having to wait an entire year before I can redo them, only to fail a single class once again.
At this point, my mental health also took a beating. ‘What am I doing wrong? What’s wrong with me?” were common thoughts in my head all through this time. I didn’t want to give up on this program, but I also knew, deep down, that re-attempting this course will drag me to a place I don’t want to be.
I’ve never been really confident in myself, and seeing my own failures is really hard for me. It’s depressing, really. And on a whim (just by chance) I ended up logging in to an old High School account, where I found some careers I had bookmarked.
I eventually got taken to a site where a big book publishing house in Canada was looking for editorial interns, and it got me thinking of the last time I wrote anything at all (other than for the blog). That kind of kickstarted a crazy idea.
It’s not too late, why don’t I apply to a publishing program?
I’ll be honest, it was an insane idea.
I would be switching from a program normally completed in 2-3 years, and starting as a freshman in a bachelors program to be completed within 4 years.
But, I didn’t see why not? I wasn’t entirely happy in my current program, and it honestly felt like I had nothing to lose. But because my educational decisions do have to go through my mom, I had to talk to her. And for that internship? I didn’t apply, I needed to get my marks back (I hadn’t known if I failed anything yet) before I could make a decision.
I then got my marks back and talked to an academic advisor, then I ended up waiting to talk to my mom before I made a decision. But I’ll be honest, I just applied and then talked to her about it while I was finishing up the portfolio I had to submit.
Doing that portfolio was one of the most stress-inducing things I’ve done in a really long time. At this point, I haven’t written creatively in a long time, probably close to 4 years. I was planning to use and also modify some unpublished works I did but turns out I didn’t have any that were up to my own standards, except one.
That one piece of work was this novel I was planning to write in High School, it’s something I would personally read and was different from the genres I used to write on Wattpad. So I made some modifications, and added that as my first work on the portfolio. Now I needed 2 more, and it was stressful.
I wasn’t sure if I still “got it” and I knew my writing would likely be very rusty, and the genre’s that I could choose to write from weren’t things I touched upon back then. I also didn’t know when the portfolio was due by, so I strived to finish and send it in as soon as I could.
Altogether, I essentially wrote 2 new short stories for that portfolio. I also got a lot of motivation to go back in on that one piece of work, and it’s looking good! I’m nowhere near finished, but it’s getting there. I also got back into the groove a little bit, I ended up being able to outline an entire story idea from a skit (unrelated but it gave me ideas) on Instagram.
