6 Things I Learned From Almost Getting Kicked Out Of Graduate School
I nearly died at the thought of getting kicked out of graduate school. Ten years ago my husband and I were a young married couple without kids, both working and going to school. The little old house we rented was over a hundred years old, sat solitary on a huge overgrown lot, and had a creepy old dungeon of a basement with twisted wood slats for stairs, and a literal dirt floor. Our neighbors less than affectionately referred to our orange stuccoed home as “The Haunted House.” In addition to the ghosts that I imagined lived there, it had a mail slot next to the front door instead of a mailbox at the curb. We hated sifting through mail at the end of our long work and school days, so it piled there dejectedly at the backside of the door on the stiff old carpet in the entryway, littered with bugs that climbed in through the half-inch, open-air gap, below the mail slot, or any one of the hundreds of cracks in the home. The house smelled and felt like the outskirts of a tornado when a windstorm came through because the old window frames and historic, original panes of glass leaked copious amounts of air and dirt when the wind blew.
I had come home happy and exhausted from a day of teaching first grade, in my favorite school, with kids I thought of as my own, when I saw the university emblem peeking out on an envelope corner in that pile. The blood drained from my face as I picked it up and my heart began to race. For a second my heart fluttered at the hopeful thought that maybe I was awarded another scholarship, but somehow in the pit of my stomach, I knew the contents weren’t good. I read,
In accordance with the University Code of Conduct, you are receiving this Written Warning because of repeated instances of disrespect to staff.
Effective immediately, you are expected to attend a disciplinary hearing.
Failure to demonstrate immediate improvement may result in further corrective action, up to and including dismissal from the university.
My eyes bulged at the finality of the tone, and my emotions soared from worry to sheer terror. A lump formed in my throat as an inaudible gasp escaped my lips when I read the last part; including dismissal from the university!?!
If words could kill me I imagined these ones would. I was mortified.
Me? Disrespectful? I racked my brain for the ‘repeated instances’ aforementioned. Was this an accident? I genuinely had no idea what I had done. I was the ultimate schoolgirl. I loved learning. I soaked it up! And I had prided myself on being an exemplary student my entire life! I had been devastated when I once got a B+ in an especially challenging math class — the only not-A grade I had ever received in my education. I went to early college at age 17 and graduated high school already having a 2-year associate’s degree, a 3.97 GPA, a recruitment package from Harvard University, and multiple scholarships. I opted to save money, and in fact got paid to go to school because of a cash scholarship on top of my full-ride, at a local university though, and had a bachelor's degree by the time I was 20. My master's degree was underway by the time I was 25 and had been teaching for a few years. There was no doubt I was committed to achievement and honor.
True, I knew that sometimes my perfectionist expectations and overzealous attitude were a little over the top and I had worked hard to reign them in, but deep down under it all, although I would never admit it at the time, I was a feather-ruffler trapped in the mind of a people-pleaser. I was an out-of-the-box thinker with big dreams and ambitions trying desperately to squeeze myself into prescribed boxes. Without a doubt I was HUNGRY. I was starving for approval, starving for acceptance, starving for achievement.
So, what had I done to ruffle feathers enough to warrant a letter of disciplinary action and the threat of expulsion from the graduate program?
Well, the masters of Education program required each student to pass a timed 1-hour technology exam to prove their proficiency in programs like Microsoft Word and Excel. The last available appointment for the test was at 4pm because the testing center closed at 5pm. The school where I taught was a 45-minute drive in smooth traffic conditions and up to over an hour in congested traffic. My young students were dismissed from school at 3 pm and I had received permission from the administration to leave the school at 3:15 to commute to the university for my 4:30 classes, giving me exactly 45 minutes to make it there for the 4 pm exam, leaving no time to account for parking or getting into the building.
Traffic was not in my favor that day, and I was 15 minutes late, leaving me 45 minutes to complete the exam before the testing center closed. I rushed through, completing each task, items like “create a pie chart in red, blue, and green positioned in-line with the text in a document formatted with half inch margins and a header with your first and last name that skips the first document page in 14 pt Times New Roman.”
Anxiously I checked the time in the top corner of the computer as the testing center attendant came over and hovered behind me. I was the only student there and she told me that I needed to wrap up my exam. I panicked inside because I needed those last few minutes and I assumed that surely she meant that I needed to prepare to finish the exam in the next 5 minutes. I continued working and sensed her behind me growing agitated that I didn’t appear to be wrapping things up as I hastily tried to complete the remaining tasks. I noticed she got a little snappy as she told me it was time to be done at 4:59 and I took what must have felt like an eternity of another thirty seconds or sixty seconds to finish the task that I was on, save the file, print, and close out of my documents. I was walking out of the testing center after submitting my printed documents a little befuddled by her sour mood, but mostly relieved to have the exam over. I dismissed her irritability and assumed she was just extra eager to get off her shift.
As my mind reviewed this memory, and every other recent school experience, looking for something, anything, I could have possibly done to cause a complaint, I thought that must be it. Well, part of it, at least. The letter cited multiple infractions.
I was stumped and continued reviewing my memories and interactions. “What had I done to warrant this” I wondered?
The only other thing I could come up with was the fact that I had e-mailed the Education program director to ask her if she would give me an extension on a deadline for an application to a program or class or something. I honestly can’t clearly recall what the scenario was, except that I had some extenuating circumstances and I felt that they warranted special arrangements. Through our correspondence she had at first indicated that my request was fine, but months later when I went to follow through on the arrangement we had agreed to, she seemed to have forgotten and was aghast that I had the audacity to ask. I had clearly ruffled her feathers.
I could have sworn that she had given me permission, but as I scoured my emails I couldn’t find her email of approval and I began beating myself up for stepping on so many toes. “How had I done something so careless” I wondered? “How had I unknowingly been so offensive?” I was sickened over the situation because I believed surely it meant something about me.
The instance and the resulting disciplinary hearing left me sick with my stomach in knots for weeks, maybe months really. I was mortified at the thought of anyone finding out and each time I attended one of my 3-hour evening classes my once bright eyes fell to the ground with shame as I wondered if that professor had heard that I was facing disciplinary action and possible expulsion.
As it turns out, one day the e-mail where the program director had agreed to our arrangement surfaced seemingly out of nowhere and I was flooded with redeeming relief. I wasn’t crazy. I hadn’t imagined that she had given me permission and happily agreed to our “outside the norm” arrangements — she had just forgotten and changed her tune!
I have never in my life been more thankful to have an attorney as a father than I was navigating that situation. It was surely one of the most humbling experiences to have him at my side as my defense as I sat timidly and listened as they presented their offenses and described my “offensive behavior” at the disciplinary hearing.
In the end, the whole thing was dismissed easily and the two women who had complained about me seemed to turn a bit sheepishly and take their accusations with them as if they were tails between their legs.
As a result of the experience, the masters of education program decided that it was necessary to extend the hours of the testing center for working students to align with the late evening classes, and the program director took a year of sabbatical. Much to my relief, the temporary program director took over almost immediately and even took the position of chairperson on my final master's project.
For years I kept the whole thing a secret, still a bit horrified at the thought of people finding out.
But now? I don’t care! That old me has died. I’m a feather-ruffler emerging from the mind of a people-pleaser. I finally live by my own heart and know my worth is not rooted in what I do or don’t accomplish or who I do or don’t receive acceptance and approval from. My worth is not contingent on not ruffling any feathers.
My willingness to push the boundaries a bit, to try unconventional things, to live and do different, and to ask uncomfortable questions, is not my downfall— it is my strength!
So why am I sharing this story? Well, maybe you too have ruffled some feathers and thought it meant something about you. Maybe you too have some old skeletons hiding in your closet you’re terrified may pop out. If you do, let me help by sharing the 6 things I learned from almost getting kicked out of graduate school:
- My worth (and yours) is fixed.
2. The only person who can MAKE you believe your worth is measured in what you do or don’t do, or who you please or displease is YOU. Don’t get me wrong, people will try to convince you that you are “worth LESS” or “worth MORE” based on what you do, but in the end only you decide. I strongly suggest you decide now that your worth is infinite and NOTHING can change that.
3. You don’t need to feel shame for living in your integrity. In both instances where I offended the University staff I can honestly say I was in my integrity — you bet I was going to maximize my time on that exam and you bet I was going to ask for permission for a special arrangement that I needed. I was acting from within my integrity and yet I felt tremendous shame. It took me YEARS to outgrow that old shame story. So choose to live within your integrity and choose to feel peace about it.
**Does that mean I WANT to step on toes? Absolutely not! Does that mean I like it? Hello no. It’s uncomfortable. But it’s more uncomfortable NOT to live within my integrity.
4. When a person’s feathers are ruffled it means more about them and less about the ruffler. Do your feathers get ruffled sometimes? Of course they do! Mine too, but I’ll let you in on you a genius secret. Next time you feel ruffled, instead of judging the offending “ruffler,” or judging yourself for being “ruffled,” what if you just asked yourself “how is this a problem for me,” get real clear on exactly what you’re thinking, and allowed yourself to feel what you feel?
5. The truth sets you free. For years I’ve kept this story a secret. When I would dig through my closet occasionally it had a way, like a skeleton buried there, to somehow pop out. I would shriek with horror, then hastily look over my shoulders to make sure no one saw as I slammed the door. I’m not saying you need to share all your skeletons with the world, but what if you could? What if you could get to that point of not caring? It’s not about other people seeing your skeleton, it’s about tossing it out with the stories you told yourself about it, alongside your fear of anyone else seeing it.
6. Choose to see each feather-ruffling experience as an opportunity for your growth and find gratitude for it. What if you chose to believe that a gift and invitation for rebirth and transformation were embedded in each experience and the rate at which you can be reborn a better version of yourself is determined by your willingness to process the experience and learn from it?
