How I Got Here

Welcome, all, to the first installment of my blog. This is my first ever blog, so please bear with me. Seeing as the subject of this blog is my experience as a transfer student at UM, I thought I ought to start by giving you some idea of how I got here. So, yes, this is the dreaded "life story" post. I'll try not to make it too long or boring.

Well, actually, I don't think it's all that necessary to tell you my whole life story. I think I'll start with the beginning of my college career. That's more the beginning of life events relevant to the topic at hand. I graduated from a high school in Nashville (my hometown) called University School of Nashville in the spring of 2004. It is really impossible to overestimate just how excited I was about going to college. I had lived in Nashville for my entire life up to that point, and I was chomping at the bit to get far, far away. That fall I had applied early decision and been accepted to a small liberal arts school in Middletown, CT called Wesleyan University (no religious affiliation, contrary to the name). Wesleyan had been far and away my first choice, and when I was accepted I was ecstatic. It's funny how life goes; had I gone on to apply regular decision that year, UM was going to be one of my safety schools.

Suffice it to say, my time at Wesleyan was a disaster. I really don't want to get into it too specifically, but I had some "serious personal issues" that led to my not achieving the level of success I expected of myself. After three semesters, in December of 2005, I moved back home to Nashville. I made the key mistake of allowing my parents to convince me to enroll part-time at Vanderbilt. None of my problems had been remedied, and I had no more success than I did at Wesleyan. I dropped out after half a semester. What followed was about eighteen months of full-time work. The kind of work available to a college dropout, of course, is not exactly inspiring. I worked as a barrista at an independent coffee shop for a few months. I liked that alright until I was promoted to assistant manager. I was stressed out all the time and still not making any money. So I left and took a higher-paying, much-lower-stress job temping in the mailroom of a financial company. I was there for almost a year.

Those of you falling asleep, wake up; I'm just getting to the part that may actually interest most of you. In May of this year, something snapped. I was like Peter Finch in Network. I ran to the window and screamed that I was not going to take it anymore. Figuratively, of course. No more full-time menial jobs. I was going back to college.

Like I said before, life is really funny sometimes. In the intervening three years, Miami's profile improved quite a bit, and obviously after my time at Wesleyan my credentials had taken a hit. My old safety school became easily the top school to which I applied. I got into Miami, as well as a few other schools. To be honest with you, at first I put Miami at the bottom of the pile, thinking there was no way I could afford it. Then, one day in July, I received the analysis of my transfer credits. One of the beautiful things about the U is that it accepts a lot more AP credits than a lot of schools. I quickly went from being halfway through my sophomore year to having less than two years worth of hours left to complete. All of a sudden, Miami was affordable.

I must say, from the moment I started to consider UM, the people in admissions were about as helpful as humanly possible. Believe me, no one's threatening me with a pink slip as I type this. I visited in August and absolutely fell in love with the school. After spending a year and a half in Connecticut, the weather alone was enough to sell me, but that wasn't all. The emphasis on diversity, the amazing opportunities in terms of visiting speakers and internships, and the quality of the classes all dazzled me. What finally sold me and made my decision was the excitement surrounding this campus. Visiting Miami was visiting a college on the rise, a college that had made a commitment to improving itself in every possible way. I wanted to be a part of that. The day I got back to Nashville I made my decision.

Hopefully my future posts won't be as massive as this one. However, I am an English major, and brevity is not exactly my strong suit. My next post will detail the difficulty (semi-impossibility?) of making the necessary arrangements when you make a decision less than a week before the school's start date. Adios.