Opportunity Journal Entry #10: Transferring

During the http://www.blogger.com/ snafu, a lot of opportunity has come my way. I have lined up interviews at both the Washington, DC and Cleveland, Ohio educational opportunity centers to review my options. The first meeting produced an extremely unlikely outcome: applying to the DC state college. Please read the passage below:

July 9, 2007

Initially I thought that the DC EOC meeting was nearly a huge waste of my time because the counselor already told me what I’ve already known about researching scholarships. However, during this time I contemplated about whether or not to attend AU because my goal was to complete my master’s thesis and if I cannot do this then I would enroll at the state school and reviewed my options. Yet, the professor was tenured professor so I would remain here (I had just emailed her about her research specialties because I wanted to get as many references as possible. Once again, it looked like I might be taking three courses this summer in order to assemble my panel.

July 10, 2007

Last night I wrote out my plan to drop AU because it offered me an opportunity to conduct research and saved me a lot of money and grief. My AU advisor emailed me about meeting to which I responded that I could see her next Tuesday at 11:30am. By then I would had requested all of my transcripts. Since my transcript request had not gone through because the address was not changed, I’d probably would have to submit it by mail or fax. Well, at least I should receive it by late July well ahead of the August 2nd, deadline. I will be accepted!

Traveling to the state college helped me a lot especially when my financial aid counselor told me that it had not processed fall aid yet. Immediately upon returning to my office, I filed my finanical aid and added the school. Therefore, by next week, the school should receive it and my aid can be calculated. In addition, I spoke to the scholarship coordinator and left a voicemail for the person who has the foundation scholarship applications. Having returned from typing thank you letters, I realized the abundance of opportunity available. Now I will cancel my attendance at tomorrow’s Toastmasters meeting because I needed to meet with Edna to obtain those scholarship applications. This was important besides my next speech was within two weeks!

The divisional manager emailed me saying that his boss approved the majority of my fall tuition grant which I was grateful for but if I did not receive a satisfactory answer from Professor Reynolds regarding my master’s thesis then I would resubmit my training request. Since my entire academic year costs $3,000, of course, they would approve this! :)

July 11, 2007

I am putting everything together. During this time, I will obtain more information, prepare my transfer credit defense by copying syllabi and aligning them with the state college's courses, and creating a budget to pay for all of my books even though the agency will pay for it.

During my commute, I initially thought about taking a couple of CLEP courses (specifically American history) to save money. Then I realized that this method could had been used to compensate for the lack of transfer credit. My goal was to graduate in 2009 debt free just in time for Harvard! Furthermore, I will register for either an independent study or a research seminar every semester to strengthen my analytical ability and publish material. By graduation, I will have eight papers. Ask Dr. Steadman about taking these courses each semester.

This three-day saga is far from over but it has taught me the importance of resiliency (the meeting never materialized because I was in a meeting when she called), time management, and keeping my eyes peeled for all future opportunities such as next week's slate of events. I will keep you posted!