I messed up my college credits and now I don’t know who to ask for help
I’m sitting in my beat-up Honda Civic in the coffee shop parking lot right now, eating a chicken burrito that got cold while I was running errands after work. Grease is already seeping through the wrapper onto my work jeans, the ones I got at the thrift store for $5 that have a tiny hole in the knee I keep meaning to sew. My roommate’s closing tonight, so I’m waiting for her, and I figured I’d finally type this out instead of just spiraling about it in my head for the third week straight.
Three years ago, sophomore year of college, my mom had that stroke out of nowhere. I was 20, living in the dorms, and I got the call at 2 a.m. while I was cramming for a bio midterm. I threw all my stuff in a garbage bag, packed my car, and drove three hours home, and I never bothered to officially withdraw from any of my classes. I was too busy sleeping on a hospital cot and arguing with insurance companies to think about dropping classes properly. By the time things stabilized a little, the semester was over, and I had four Fs on my transcript that tanked my GPA so bad I can’t even apply to the nursing program I want now. I need to do credit recovery, or whatever they call it, to fix those grades, and I have no clue what I’m doing.
I went to the campus registrar’s office last week, on my day off. I paid $10 for two hours of parking, that alone made my stomach hurt. I stood at the front desk for five minutes before the lady behind the glass looked up from her phone, where she was scrolling those cleaning TikTok videos. I told her what I needed, and she just reached under the desk and pulled out a crumpled, faded brochure that has the old university logo on it from before they rebranded in 2020. She said “All the info’s on the website” and went back to her phone. I stood there for another second, rambling a little about my mom and how it’s been a minute and I don’t know where to start, and she just nodded, not even looking up. I left and threw the brochure in a trash can by the door. I should have kept it, probably, but I was so embarrassed I just wanted to get out of there.
I thought okay, fine, I can do this online. I stayed up till 2 a.m. last Tuesday clicking through every page on the school’s site. There are like 12 different policies that all sound the same but have different names: academic renewal, course repeat, credit recovery, grade forgiveness. I still can’t tell which one applies to me. Half the links are broken, the other half lead to a form that says you have to get advisor approval first, but no one tells you which advisor. I got so frustrated I threw my phone onto the couch, and it hit my cat’s ceramic water bowl, knocked it over, spilled all over the old rug I got from my grandma. I had to get paper towels and sop it up at 2:30 in the morning, and the cat just sat on the counter watching me like I was an idiot. Which I kind of was, I guess.
Most of my friends graduated already. The one who’s still in school is doing her master’s in education, and she’s busy writing her thesis and planning her wedding. I don’t want to text her at 10 p.m. and be like “hey can you explain what a credit overload is to me” when she’s got a million other things going on. I feel stupid, anyway. I’m 26, for god’s sake. All my friends are posting about engagement photos and 401k matches and I’m over here trying to fix a mistake I made when I was 20. I mentioned it to my boss at the bookstore I work at, the other night when we were closing up. He went to this same school, back in the 90s, so I thought he’d know something. He just shrugged and said “Oh, just take a couple summer classes, easy peasy.” Easy peasy. One credit hour at this school is $1400 now. I can barely afford my rent and my car insurance, I still owe $1800 on that hospital bill from when I had my appendix out last year. I can’t drop $5600 on four classes just to fix my grades. He didn’t get it, just patted my shoulder and locked up the front door and left to go to his country club dinner or whatever.
I did find this Facebook group, actually, last night. It’s for non-traditional students at my university, people coming back after time off. I posted a quick thing saying I had Fs from an old semester after a family emergency and need help figuring out credit recovery, and within 10 minutes this lady commented back. She said she had the exact same thing happen after her husband got into a car accident ten years ago, and she told me there’s a whole advising department for returning students that I never heard of, and they don’t charge you anything, and they help you fill out all the forms. She even linked the email address. But I’ve had the draft email open in my Gmail for 18 hours now, and I keep rewording it. Do I lead with the mistake? Do I mention my mom? Will they think I’m just making excuses? I don’t want to sound like I’m asking for special treatment, I just want someone to tell me what step to take first.
My roommate just texted. She says a group of pre-med study kids came in for lattes right at closing, so she’s gonna be another 15 minutes. The burrito’s gone, the grease spot on my jeans isn’t coming out, probably. I still don’t know what I’m doing. I thought if I wrote this all out, I’d feel some big click, like I’d suddenly know what to do. But I still just feel that tight little knot in my throat when I think about pulling up my transcript online. It’s not even that I regret what happened, honestly. If I had to do it again, I’d leave school to be with my mom too. I just didn’t know one stupid, panicked decision when I was young would hang around this long, making me ask for help I don’t know how to ask for.
Maybe I’ll send that email tonight, after we get home and split a pizza. Maybe I’ll close the tab and put it off for another week. I don’t have a neat ending for this. I just need help, and I’m still trying to work up the nerve to actually get it. (Word count: 1182)
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