New and Improved Summer Plans

When I decided to get my GED and go to college it was with the intention of learning about environmental issues and hopefully, someday doing something in an environmental field. I had vague notions of selling solar panels or building trails. I really had no clue about my options - but that's why you go to college, right?

Then I learned about this idea of "restoration" and it opened up this whole world of possibilities. I thought to myself, "Self, this is for me." But then, in my second year, I had this run-in with self-doubt. I still carried around this feeling, as I had for so long due to my lack of a high school diploma, that jobs in fields such as restoration were for "other people" not for people "like me."

So I got off of that track and headed down one that was so, so wrong for me - law school. We all know how that ended. After that I hurried back to environmental science. If law school taught me anything it was that life is short, and, as the Life Is Good people say: Do what you like, Like what you do.

So I thought about what I really, really want to do and I made my way back to restoration. And then I did what I do when I don't know what else to do: Apply to school! I gathered up new letters of recommendation, wrote personal statements, filled out forms like there was no tomorrow - and before I knew it I was in yet another degree program. Phew. Back in school.

Registration day approaches and I have yet to speak with anyone about schedules and my questions about my new degree requirements. So, being the planner that I am, I head downtown to speak with my program's coordinator. While I'm waiting for my appointment I find a flyer that makes me stop in my tracks. River Restoration Field Institute it reads. 4 weeks of intensive river restoration learning fun. In the field. But, damn, it's for the summer time, and I'm not officially a student until Fall. Well, maybe next year.

But! I ask my department coordinator and he says...It's no problem! I can be admitted for summer!

But, there's no way I'm going to be able to afford it, and I've only applied for fall financial aid. Surely I've missed all of the summer aid deadlines.

But! I go into financial aid anyway...and they say there should be no problem! I just have to change my 05-06 FAFSA and I can be packaged for summer.

So...There's still paperwork to do and hoops to jump through but it looks like, more likely than not, I'll be spending my summer in the field "nearly-immersed in river restoration"!

I feel like Cinderella in academia.