I want to share my experience from my first quarter at OSU in Summer 2022, taking two classes. My biggest obstacle from this quarter wasn’t the courses, it was dealing with my family. But I learned from my experience. I’m writing this blog post because I want to reflect on my past, and draw ideas for the future. I’m also writing this because someone might be entering OSU in similar shoes to mine. Maybe there’s someone with their external struggles, applying to the Online Post-bacc program.
Before talking about my quarter, here is some context of my living situation. My mom has Parkinson’s disease, my parents argue everyday, and they constantly overstep my boundaries by depending a bit too much on me. They act like hopeless children; they don’t care if I have an exam coming up, they would gaslight me into driving them to places. You know how you see really bad families on TV? Unfortunately, I was born in one of those…
Entering my first quarter at OSU, I was and still am confident in my ability to study. I was able to balance school, family, and part-time work. I’m pretty proud that I was able to be an independent, responsible student up to week 6 or 7. After that I started having trouble on homework and quizzes. As a former Civil Engineer, when there are signs that things aren’t working (starting to do worse and worse on homework), I need to set aside time to think of solutions.
Some actions I ended up taking are I kept leaving the house, ignoring calls from my parents, and talking to the instructors. At home there is always unnecessary noise or mom is screaming for help every 15 minutes. I also realized that if there was ever an emergency, my parents could call 911. So leaving during the day gave me a huge break until I have to return at night. I also talked to my instructors very early on if I foresee issues.
There were different responses whenever I reached out to my instructors for help or advice. I still remember to this day, one instructor was very understanding of my situation and went above and beyond to support me. She can see that I was doing well in the class and wanted me to keep doing well. She offered me any help she could (extensions, extra office hours, advice on family, advice to talk to my other instructor).
The other instructor basically said to me “oh that sucks, how are you going to solve your problem?”. I don’t blame him because he doesn’t owe me anything, and there must be an annoyingly large occurrence of students crying to me. This instructor did his best to help me. He listened to my issue and he did give me advice for the future; summer quarter is usually more rushed and it’s best to take less or even no classes.
Finally, here are my take-aways. Learned to cut my losses, continue to adapt, and talk to instructors. I need to cut myself some slack, let’s say I spent hours everyday for my class, and every now and then my family conflicts with my study sessions. Well my grade won’t be an A, but I did the best I could. Constantly adapting with a tough skin helped me a lot. If I’m not getting a space to focus, I find one. If I end up getting hate voicemail from my parents, I will be patient with them. Finally, reaching out to share my struggles helped me to feel less alone, and it never hurts to reach out. Even last quarter (Fall 2023), I still apply these take-aways.
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