I’ve come to learn that standing up for yourself is one of the best feelings, it gives you a sense of power that can help get through super stressful situations.
So over the past few months (really the entire semester) I have seen numerous situations where myself or someone I know really was not being treated properly. Over the past few months, I have learned specifically that it is okay to stand up for yourself and people should do it more often. Don’t get me wrong there is definitely a time and a place for it but most people just bow down to authority figures.
Resolution through standing up for yourself might be immediate and might take a days or months but in the end you will feel relieved that it is over. You also will know that you did the right thing.
You pay thousands and thousands of dollars for college, you might as well get EVERYTHING you can out of it. However, professors get tenure and can sometimes be super intimidating. A thing called academic freedom makes it seem like they have complete control and there is nothing you can do. But that’s not true…
Stand up for yourself, the worst that is going to happen is they say no.
This happened to my best friend this past year where there was a grading disagreement between him and his professor. She had a procedure for “re-grades” which would be done 1 week after the start of the spring semester. He emailed her 7 times between January and March and did not get a response.
He decided to talk to the Dean of the college not because of the grading but because of the unprofessionalism from his professor. They forgot about him...he tried again, actually went in and met with the Dean and the Associate Dean. They basically did nothing.
At this point in the semester, it is the end of April, the semester is basically over and my best friend is feeling completely defeated. The only options that are left are emailing the Associate Dean and tell her he wants to take it to the Presidential Board or give up. He did not give up. Within days of it going to the board, everything turned around.
He had gone through an entire semester of stress about this class, this professor, these professional meetings but in the end, he got what he deserved and had so much relief from it. Yes, this may seem like not the biggest deal...but it was. He had accomplished something no one in our friend group would have otherwise.
Because he stood up for himself.
I saw the effects this had on him, both positively and negatively and recently came into a situation where I needed to stand up to myself with the office of the apartment complex I am renting from. I was very nervous because I am not a confrontational person and am also super emotional. Here is what happened:
In February, the refrigerator broke and we called maintenance who came four times, on four different days to fix the problem. Great, it's fixed. Well fast forward three months to May, it breaks again on the Saturday of Memorial Day Weekend. We had the exact same problem as we did in February just three months later.
My roommate calls (I have three new roommates at this point) and they tell her the earliest they can have someone here to even look at it is Monday. Which is 3 days away and if it is anything like last time you have to add 4 days to that before it actually gets fixed so now we’re talking like Thursday or Friday before I get a refrigerator.
I cannot afford to lose $200 worth of groceries twice in three months.
I decided to go to the office and talk to someone…
I went in and outlined that the refrigerator broke a few months ago, was fixed and is broken again and that I cannot afford to lose all my food again. They called in the maintenance man and within an hour not only did I have a refrigerator that was working; I had a brand new one.
It just goes to show when you deserve something whether it be a new appliance, a grading procedure, or even be treated with respect from a friend, employer or significant other; it is okay to stand up for yourself.
Be assertive, be kind but do not let anyone walk all over you.
