Why I Will Never Trust The System.

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I’m still in Madison, Wisconsin.

That wasn’t the plan. I was supposed to transfer from the area technical college to UW-Milwaukee. That’s in Milwaukee, Wisconsin for those of you that don’t know the area. Just in case. I want to go there to pursue a BFA in Acting. Ultimately, I want to be the artistic director of my own theatre company. To do this, I have to go to college and get smarts, and recommendations, and a lot of connections.

I’ve been collecting General Ed. credits for a good while now. When I graduated from my small town high school I was not excepted to my school of choice, which I now realize I would have hated, but at the time I thought it was a life sentence of mediocrity. So I went to the local community college for a semester to try to get my grades up to be admitted on my second try.

I don’t hate myself. In fact I think I’m pretty great in most situations. But I suck at anything to do with hardcore academia, such as mathematics or chemistry per se. The second try didn’t work out so well either.

I found out I wasn’t going to be admitted about a week before classes were to begin. So, not wanting to stay in the same town, living at home, I decided to move to Madison. So I signed up for classes at the Madison area tech college the Friday before classes started. I moved in with one of my very cool cousins and her family. I got settled. I went to class. I did my work. I got a job. I moved in with a friend. Had a boyfriend for a while. Got some more friends, was in a few musicals. It was pretty good.

Skip forward 3 semesters. I’ve decided upon UW-Milwaukee as the university I wanted to pursue. I put the work in to go there, and got cold feet. Most likely from the disappointments that came before it. I decided to become a part-time student at the tech college. This was completely my decision. I said I wanted the time to get better prepared, to earn some money, to work out the kinks that had held me back in the past.

Some of that happened. Some of it didn’t. During that time I also was gearing up to move to Milwaukee for real, to start the following semester. I did all my paperwork. All of my research. All of the touring. All of it. When I got a letter from Milwaukee saying that some of my transcripts hadn’t been submitted I called the admissions office and explained to them that I had submitted them the first time I applied.

“Ok. No problem. Just submit your final transcript at the end of the term.”

“Alright, no problem. Will do. Have a good afternoon.”

I went down to the administration offices and signed the form to have it sent as soon as it was complete.

Two weeks before I’m set to move into the dorms, I still haven’t heard the outcome of my application. I call the admissions office to check on it’s status.

“We never received your final transcript, your application hasn’t even been considered for the spring term. “

[Initial Shock]

It turns out that it was past the deadline for applications to be considered by that time and there was nothing they could do to help me but promise I would be “ahead of the curve” for the fall semester.

With all of this back story I hope you can understand that to me, the acceptance of that application was my chance to get it right. That was my path to the future. It was the erasing of foils in my past. Do I blame the system completely? Of course not. I should have double checked. I should have been more aware. So I’m back at the tech school for another semester. Going through all of it again.

So why is all of this on the internet? This is my story of climbing back up, of accepting the past and taking the next step. It’s about the human condition.

Wish me luck.

Luke.

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