I felt really cool, successful, fulfilled, and proud when I got my acceptance letter to the University of Delaware's honors program in the Spring of my senior year. I chose to attend Delaware based on the academic challenges I'd face in the honors program. Quite honestly, I was naive enough to think I deserved to be in a more prestigious part of the university than my peers. So when I got the email saying I was on academic probation after my first semester at college, I felt enough shame, guilt, and embarrassment to question my decision to go to Delaware in the first place.
I was unequipped to take on college life when I arrived in Delaware my Freshman year. After skating through 12 years of grade and high school as a smart kid who rarely studied, I had no idea how to write a paper or take a test on a college level. I thought I would be able to handle the course work and living on my own and making new friends and dealing with my roommate and getting involved while maintaining a bustling social life, but I was soooooo mistaken.
When I got the email from the UD honors office saying I would be taken out of the honors program and lose my scholarship at the end of my freshman year, I immediately felt like a full-blown failure, like a 'killed my family-robbed a bank-blew all the money in Vegas and now am being put in prison for life' kinda of failure. Like a Hillary Clinton level failure (too soon, I know).
But there is a silver lining here as there always is.
Living at home in the summer, and knowing I would be going back to school as a regular, non-honors student, I realized I was still alive and breathing and happy. I also realized I was still going to get a degree from this fancy University someday like all my other intelligent peers and friends in college.
I realized I was pompous, almost pretentious, and rude to my friends to think I had any right to the prestige or pride I felt based on my acceptance to the honors program. I wanted to go back to my senior year self, slap her across the face, and say "you're not as cool as you think. You're cool, but not because of your honors status. You're cool because you're you".
It was hard to get kicked out of the honors program, and I am almost embarrassed about how difficult it was for me to deal with this paradigm shift and complete change in my self-image. To be dramatic, it was as if I had lost a part of me that I had thought was permanent: my intelligence. But I now had this piece of me that I could replace with other things. I could now focus on getting good grades in the courses I was in, I had time for a job, and I started to create deeper friendships at school. Also I better understood that nothing about me changed. I was still as smart and creative as ever, but just my environment had changed. I had to admit to self-deprecating self that it wasn't that big of a deal even if the rejection was foreign and stinging for me.
After learning I was no long an honors student, I understood better that my life was not going to be about "being impressive" to others. I no longer wanted to do things for self-promotion, for prestige, or to make my friends and family proud of me. It was freeing to break through this facade and just live my life to do good for myself and others. I could pursue things that made me feel good and not things that I thought would look good on a resumé or on Facebook.
All in all, I became a better person after I was kicked out of the honors program. I commend those who are able to keep up with the work and intellectual challenge of the University of Delaware's honors program as well as the demanding schedule and course work. I do not mean to belittle the advantages of that program. I simply believe that I became more me after getting removed from that program, and I am very grateful.
PS: shoutout to Joe Biden
