Today, I graduate. After 5.5 grueling years (well, really 4, but 1.5 of those years were spent in grief and, even though I wasn't working on my thesis, I still had to maintain my status as a student by paying tuition), I graduate. I graduate with my master's in History (focus: European History). I graduate a member of Phi Beta Phi honor society. I graduate with a 4.0. I graduate with an 86-page thesis.
This has definitely been one of the most grueling things I've ever done. The first two years were easy - classes, lectures, papers. I made an A in all. But my thesis. Oh, my thesis. I made a poor choice in a thesis advisor - one who would hold my chapters and chapter revisions for 5 weeks at a time without looking at them, causing me to run out of time TWO different semesters and not graduate; one who was inconsistent with his criticisms and notes; one who was terrible with communication; one who changed my thesis prose to make it sound better while changing my timeline and changing facts. I spent hours fixing what he did, looking up words he added/replaced my word, scratching at the hives that came out, cursing the situation. And then the university ignored my pleas, despite a professor and a dean at other universities telling me that he was performing his duties as a thesis advisor to the best of his ability. Even my other reader questioned his decisions.
But it's over. I am done. It's the past. I have conquered and I will grow. This has been one of the most challenging experiences I've gone through - up there with the death of my parents and the Marine Corps Marathon. This one, however, endured.
But it's over.
Time for a new goal. Perhaps I shall go back to writing.
Ciao!
