Tag Archives: life

Why I failed out of Grad School

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Simply put: a series of bad decisions. The first being, I have always struggled with distance learning and believed that my own motivation to succeed in the program would be enough to get me through. It would seem that I was wrong.

The online courses, while I was able to get through them with passing grades, did not provide me with a lasting foundation of learning for me to utilize in real-world application. Each course had the requirements of textbook reading, essay writing, and discussion posting and responding. I did well enough in these requirements, but there was little to no opportunity for any real and actual conversation about areas in which I was perhaps, struggling.

The program required attendance to two separate residencies. These were essentially set up as two day-long conferences. To my benefit, I was able to attend these online. To my detriment, I was later told that going to the in-person residencies were more hands-on and beneficial to the students. Students were able to ask meaningful and personal questions and receive productive answers.

When I began my internship, I simultaneously began what was called a seminar. Seminar was a weekly, live class with a small group of my cohort. This was a more individualized opportunity to learn how to apply our learning. This was a course in which we would practice and prepare ourselves for our final graduation project/test, a complete and comprehensive assessment, diagnosis, and treatment plan of a real client we were to be working with, all through the lens of a specific chosen theorist. This project also needed to include rule-out diagnoses, cultural considerations, application of the code of ethics and local laws. We did sections of this project each week and would turn in and receive feedback and edits to apply. In my seminar, because I was the last person to present my mock project, I did not receive all the feedback to my sections before the course ended. And due to complications with my internship site, I was essentially held back and placed in a new seminar course. I was also put on a specific, weekly one-on-one meeting session with my advisor for specific tutoring.

My internship site was probably my biggest detriment. While my internship supervisor was aware of my requirements, he did not try very hard to ensure I was meeting those requirements. I was not receiving weekly supervision meetings with him, I was not anywhere near meeting my required direct care hours, and I was not given any long-term clients. On multiple occasions I considered leaving and finding a new internship site, and on multiple occasions my supervisor promised me changes in how my internship experience would be run to ensure I was able to meet my requirements, and on multiple occasions those changes either never happened or failed to produce results.

The other struggle I came across was miscommunication between all parties. My program routinely told me to advocate for myself and my needs, and yet, whenever I did to my supervisor my concerns did not seem to be taken seriously. When my supervisor requested things from me, I was sent off on my own to accomplish these and always got them wrong. Instead of attempting to help me get them right I was sent off to try again without help or mentorship and he then would claim this as me not doing my assignments and coming to meetings unprepared. After my required year of internship, which had been extended due to not meeting the requirements I needed for my program, I was let go from the internship.

Following that, I was also dismissed from the program essentially due to an inability to apply my academic learning to real-world situations. After being let go at my internship, the program directors had a hearing for me. During this hearing I was entirely alone without any corroborating advocacy to my difficulties. When asked how it was I held myself accountable for these difficulties after each answer I was responded to that it sounded like I was simply playing the victim. And perhaps this essay portrays the same thing. What I was not made aware of was that the hearing panel was not interested in me defending myself, they wanted me to tell them how I would maintain a positive image for the school. It was deemed that the school was unable to do anything further to help me complete the program and it was unanimously voted for my dismissal.

This is the story of why my situation appears unusual. I had been enrolled in and excited to complete a Forensic Psychology program. The program turned out to be simply a Clinical Mental Health Counseling program with three elective courses dedicated to forensic topics, not forensic counseling methods. My experience with my previous program was an astounding blow to my life, my goals, and my self-esteem towards what I had previously felt an extreme passion for doing.

Life and Death

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It was Christmas, 2015 that the explosion happened at the dinner table. My brother and I, my parents, my aunt and uncle, and two younger cousins. We might have been having fun, wearing tissue paper crowns and racing wind-up penguins across the table. It was much later and the two younger ones were locked into their electronic devices, the rest of us remained at the table, wine glasses close to empty, listening to my uncle tell stories. And then my brother snapped.

I dont remember how old I was when I finally began to understand the kind of person my uncle was. My mom tells me she saw the look that crossed my face the moment it happened. That my aunt saw it too. 

It took years for my brother and I to finally decide we’d had enough of my uncle. My brother had packed his things and nearly drove home that night. It took an hour long, heated conversation for him to finally come out and say he wouldn’t do a family gathering that included my uncle again. My brother was eventually persuaded to stay, but it was the last Christmas we would spend with my aunt, uncle, and cousins.

December 2017, right before Christmas, my last grandparent passed. Some time before that my mom and I had gone to lunch and she’d told me what my grandma’s life had been like. How hard it must have been. It was lovely to hear she’d had a smile on her face when she passed. That perhaps my granddad had finally taken her hand and that they were reunited.

And it was that passing that finally brought us all back together. To raise a glass to celebrate her life and love, together.

Not present, was my uncle. 

Five days prior, the doctors had discovered cancer in his bones and lungs. They told him he had a few months at best. That day he stopped eating. My aunt believed he had given up hope. She called her eldest daughter, away at college, and told her she needed to come home as soon as possible. And that afternoon we helped my aunt get ahold of hospice.

I’ve struggled to remember the anger I felt, to remember why it was important. Maybe there is a reason it all happened like this. My sweet and endlessly loving grandmother, hanging on to life for so long. No one knows why. Perhaps it was for this. Perhaps it was to bring us all back together at this time when love and support was needed. Perhaps this was her lasting gift to us.