Scam U

Over a decade ago I decided to jump in and go for one of my dreams. I started applying to colleges to become a forensic psychologist. I have always been fascinated by humans, our minds, and why we do what we do. 

I decided to take a leap of faith and go back to school as a single, full time working mom. 

I knew I had my work cut out for me, but I also knew how badly I wanted this. 

I could make this happen. 

I applied to a prestigious local college. I felt like I didn’t have a chance at getting in and a handful of people told me not to hold my breath. 

I did it anyway. 

When I got my acceptance letter I was over the moon happy. 

I gave it my all and I fell in love with college. 

The material we were learning was so much more my style. The professors were fun and it felt so easy to remember all of this new information. I wanted more of this. 

Everything was great until it wasn’t. 

It felt like everything crumbled at once. 

(Another story for another time). 

I withdrew from the school. 

Regret and grief washed over me. 

I failed. 

I gave in. 

I quit. 

I was so disappointed in myself. 

I wallowed for a while but then I knew that I needed to dust myself back off and keep trying. 

I decided to try an online school. I figured that I could always fit classes in from home. 

I found one that seemed like a great fit. 

I was so excited to start. 

Once I was officially enrolled, the reliability of the staff fizzled out. 

They seemed to have all the time in the world for me until I was actually enrolled. Then I was lucky if I got a call back. 

I didn’t need a lot though, so I kept pushing forward and ignored that giant red flag. 

They didn’t have forensic psychology, but I could get a general bachelor’s degree in psychology. As long as I could keep learning about it, I was going to make it work. 

I hit the ground running. I was crushing my classes. They weren’t much fun and I didn’t feel like I was taking in the information the way that I did at my last school but I wasn’t going to let that stop me. 

Day by day I was doing it. 

I was chipping away at my degree. 

I made it through every class I didn’t think I would. 

I excelled at the classes I was interested in. 

I was going to have my bachelors degree. 

Every check in call I had with my counselors they confirmed that I was right on track. 

If I kept this up there was no way that I wouldn’t graduate! 

I had plenty of money from my student loans and grants to make it completely through graduation. 

For two years they assured me of that. 

I couldn’t see anything getting in the way of my dreams. 

After the Bachelor’s degree, I was going for my Masters. 

In a few months, I would be able to work in my field. 

I was BEAMING with excitement. 

Everything I had worked so hard for was paying off. 

I had juggled being a full time mom and working three jobs and school. 

I never slept, but it was so worth it. 

Until it wasn’t. 

In one of my last classes, my professor failed me and said that I didn’t do the assignment. 

It was a class that I dreaded and was so excited for it to be over. 

I did every single assignment and I did them well because I was not retaking this horrifically boring and pointless class. 

In fact it felt so good posting that last assignment that I had taken a video of me uploading the video. It showed my face, the class, and the whole process of me uploading the assignment. It even showed that it was submitted on the school’s end along with my celebration dance at the end. 

The video even came with a date and time stamp on it. 

I had sent it to my friends so that they knew it was on. We were celebrating tonight! 

When the professor refused to let me submit video evidence of me posting my project, I involved my counselor who assured me that we would settle this. He was going to set up a meeting with the higher ups. 

I prepared myself for the phone meeting and when I got the call, it was just me and my counselor. 

There were no higher ups. 

He said that he already talked to them, and that they wouldn’t accept the video evidence. 

I tried and said everything on that phone call. 

I would not retake the class. 

I had PROOF that I had submitted it. 

No matter what I said, they wouldn’t budge. 

They were failing me intentionally, I just didn’t know that then. 

My counselor assured me that I still had plenty of funding to cover this and that I could retake the class and it would all be okay. 

I didn’t like it, but I didn’t know what else to do. 

I made my focus graduating because at least I could still do that. 

“Just get through graduation and then it will all be worth it.”

I buckled down, determined to get through this. 

The next 2 months were insane. 

I got a phone call from the financial aid office stating that I needed $10,000 by the end of the month (it was the middle of the month), or I would be withdrawn from my classes. 

I told them that this was absolutely not true and that for two years they have had my funding completely mapped out. Never was I short, and I especially wasn’t $10,000 short. 

Also, what single parent in their early 20’s was coming up with 10 grand in 2 weeks!? 

What an insane thing to ask of me. 

Just like the phone call when they failed me, it didn’t matter what I said. 

They showed that I was completely out of funding and that was all that mattered. 

After that phone call, I couldn’t get anyone to call me back and financial aid wouldn’t tell me anything other than what I owed and my countdown til I was kicked out of school. I was only a few months away from graduation. 

This was absolutely devastating. 

I started to scramble trying everything that I could think of. 

I was constantly given the runaround on the phone and put through to unanswered voicemails for two weeks. 

Still without even a call back, they kicked me out of my classes in the middle of the semester. 

I got onto my financial aid portal and saw that they took all of it.

I was stacked with debt and because it was a 4 year bachelor degree program, I didn’t have a single thing to show for it. 

All that hard work for nothing. 

I was devastated. 

I failed again. 

That’s how it felt. 

Every time I tried to find a way to finish my degree, there was some huge obstacle in the way. 

I didn’t have any fight left in me. 

I decided it wasn’t meant to be. 

I gave up on that version of my dream. 

I have looked into it over the years and attempted to go back and finish but everything is different now. 

It would require retaking a lot of classes that no longer transfer, and a lot of extra work in classes that I don’t even need. I wouldn’t even be learning the things in my field that light me up because I took all of those back then. 

Every time I could feel that defeat creeping back into my body. I didn’t want to get crushed again. My experiences had me stopping before I could even get started. 

Then everything changed. 

 I got a text message from my mom. 

The school had been sued for doing this exact same thing to a lot of others and they won. 

I couldn’t believe it!! What did this mean for me!? 

It meant nothing.  

Nothing happened with my loans though. 

They just sat there, building twice as fast as I could pay them. 

I felt like I would never be able to get them off of me. This was a lesson that I would be buried under forever. 

I sat down at the computer and started digging. 

The doubt and fear of being denied and screwed over again was thick. It made me want to quit before I even tried, but I reminded myself, this time I wasn’t sitting around letting things happen to me. 

This time, I was fighting back. 

I was going all in. 

I found a way to appeal the decision. 

I wrote the whole story and then I let it go. 

I realized that whatever happened from here, I would handle it. 

Maybe the lessons weren’t what I thought they were. 

Maybe this one was just about letting go. 

As I was re-reading my final words, peace washed over me.

Whatever will be will be. 

It was off of me. 

I forgot all about it. 

I knew that when the decision was made, they would let me know. I didn’t need to worry or fret. 

I needed to go live my life without all the fear. 

Without all the resentment. 

What I truly needed was to stop searching for what was going to hurt me and building defenses against it. 

I needed to shift my focus to where I am and where I was going.

I needed to start living my life right now. Exactly as it was. 

If those dreams were meant to be, they would still find there way to me.  

I was still making moves towards learning, they just weren’t a traditional route. 

No matter what happened, I never quit trying to find my way. 

I was always searching for knowledge and the world was full of it. 

I didn’t need college. 

There were tons of other ways. 

I dove into health and life coaching and fell in love with it. 

I knew that I could build onto that and started the challenge of becoming a certified personal trainer and nutrition coach. 

I was learning so much and paving a brand new path in my world. 

When I stopped focusing on the hurt, it made room for me to find more happy. 

I woke up grateful for my day. 

I put my feet on the ground and got started with my morning. 

I moved my body. 

I wrote from the soul for the blog. 

I drank my water. 

I meditated. 

I studied. 

I smiled. 

I went out to the desert to soak in the sun rise with my loves.

I was full of gratitude.

For the first time that morning, I picked up my phone. 

I had an email notification. I opened it up and there was an email from my student aid. 

I honestly thought it was spam. 

It didn’t even cross my mind that it would be a letter about my appeal. 

Before I even knew what I was reading, I saw the words “you are eligible for a full discharge”. 

I sat there in complete shock. 

I won. 

I won my appeal. 

A complete wave of relief washed over me. 

After all this time, I won. 

I soaked in the gratitude. 

 Everything had changed. I was no longer that scared girl who felt completely lost. I was the girl with no quit, who was going to make it no matter what.

And here I was, living another dream come true.