Margot Bruce
This time last year, I was in a very different place, both physically and figuratively. I was sitting at home in Connecticut, trying to decide which history course was most likely to transfer back to Wooster and looking at pictures of all of my friends reuniting at school. I was under the impression that I would be away from school for one semester. I would complete my Junior I.S. in the spring and return as a full-time student the subsequent fall. Things did not quite work out as I planned.
I think it’s accurate to say that I was a total mess when I left school at the end of my sophomore year. My older brother had died three years prior, but it took me until the spring of 2013 to admit that I wasn’t fine and to ask for help. The first part of my year at home was devoted to sorting out all the feelings that I had bottled up until then. When the semester ended, I realized that I still wasn’t ready to go back, no matter how much I wanted to. The second half of my year was devoted to learning the executive functioning skills I had been fudging for pretty much my whole life.
I don’t regret my time away. I needed it, and it absolutely helped me be ready to come back to school. Last year I was the best student I’ve ever been, in grades and habits. I made the right call.
It is a damn good thing that I did a lot of growing this year because, to put it plainly, the re-admission process sucks. I submitted my application a few days before the deadline, April 15, and I was not informed that I had been readmitted until June.
This was not nearly as bad as the experience of one of my hallmates, who did not find out that he was readmitted until one week before the first day of classes, but it was much longer than I was comfortable with. The school found housing for me, but the adventure continued once I got on campus. I was not listed as a student in the English department until the Aug. 22. At that point, I received an email from the English Department Chair telling me that I needed to meet with potential advisors for my Senior I.S. that Monday, despite not having a clear idea of what my Junior I.S. would be. I was not told anything about whether I was a junior, as my email ends in ’16, or a senior, as my name was on the list for convocation robes.
Although I did eventually sort this out (after having seven meetings in the span of three days), it was quite unpleasant to hover in such uncertainty. The only reason that I got answers to all of my questions was because I took the initiative and arranged these meetings myself. This disappointed me, not because I felt that I needed someone to hold my hand, but because Wooster has always been very adept at answering my questions and facilitating my interactions with faculty. When I wanted to withdraw, all I needed to do was to say that I wished to withdraw from the school. At that time, the re-application process was thoroughly explained. To return to school in this haze of uncertainty, when previously everything had been made clear, was jarring to say the least.
To me, coming back to school was far scarier than leaving it. I had to trust that I was prepared to be back on campus, away from my parents and therapist and the comfort zone I had built over the course of a year, back to the place where I had fallen apart. It was hard enough to do that, let alone to do that with no idea of when I would graduate or how my I.S. would work.
I love being back at school, but that doesn’t mean that the return process was pleasant.