May of 2014 is a point in time that will always be burned into my memory. I have been taking college classes from Fall of 2009 through May 7th, 2016. By and large, I have been pretty successful throughout my studies or at least I was until May of 2014. Throughout my seven years of taking classes to achieve my Master's Degree in Professional Communication, I have passed every course I have taken but one. This article is dedicated to the instructor of that class and I hope that they are reading this and appreciate all that they have meant to my life.
I finished my undergraduate career with a solid 3.28 GPA. Considering that I began my studies as a 37-year-old "non-traditional" student, as I was classified by the state, I was fairly satisfied with what was in effect a high B, borderline B+ GPA. When I began, I saw college as a means to an end and never expected it to make such a profound impact on my life. In the course of my undergraduate career, I met a trio of professors at East Tennessee State University that inspired me to continue my education and strive for a Master's Degree. One would be the professor that had advised me as an undergraduate to double major in speech communication, another would become my adviser at the graduate level, and the other would challenge me to prove to her why I wanted to get a master's degree in order for her to write me a letter of recommendation. After all was said and done, I was accepted into the program and I began classes in the Fall of 2013.
My graduate career began much as my undergraduate career had ended, with a B to borderline B+ GPA and I looked forward to getting into the meat of my program in the Spring of 2014. For the first time in my collegiate career, I hit a wall that I was not able to break through and I failed a class. Make no mistake about it, the fault for that failure was mine as I simply did not put the effort into the course that was needed and I failed the course. My failure resulted in me being put on academic probation and created a crisis of confidence in me. I had to decide if I was going to quit and go away happy with the bachelor's degree I had achieved, satisfied that I had tried to go further and didn't make it or I could push forward and break on through to pass the program I had chosen for myself. No one but me would have blamed me if I had chosen to walk away, for graduate school is no joke. It is hard and it is designed to make sure that only the best make it through. If it were easy, then the degree earned at the end would be meaningless.
It was during this time of uncertainty that I realized that the failure in that course was not a failure at all, it was a challenge to pull myself up and work harder to finish the degree. With my focus honed in on my destination, I pushed forward and spent two semesters pulling my GPA up over the 3.0 barrier that was required to come off probation and regain my status as a student in good standing. It took an extra semester, but in the end I was able to achieve my goal and finish the degree and this would never have happened if that instructor had not challenged me in May 2014. To that instructor, I say thank you. I genuinely hope that you know how much you impacted my life by simply being a great instructor and making me fully aware that "OK" was not going to be good enough. You set the bar high and you never wavered on that. I do not think I will ever be able to repay you for the impact that fateful May day had on me, but I hope that you know that I have spent the last two years trying my best to regain the respect that I feel I lost in your eyes those 24 months ago. You are an amazing professor and I will always remember your most important lesson you taught me, to never accept "OK" and always strive for better.
