ooooh, what a little persistence will doooooo....

So here's a little story about Sticking With It (Even Though You Think It's Going To Fail).

I was recently doing some research into graduate psychology programs and discovered that most of them require some form of undergraduate statistics. Now, I haven't studied stats since high school, so if I were interested in pursuing a masters in psychology (which I'm not sure I am, but stick with me on this) I'd have to go back to college and take undergrad statistics.

Ok, fine. Then I got to thinking about application deadlines and stuff. If, I told myself, I want to be able to consider grad school in the winter of 2011, I'd have to take stats... this summer! Otherwise, I'll have to take stats in the fall and apply in the spring for a fall of 2011 admission.

So I dragged my heels a bit, thinking:

• commencement just happened
• the summer session can't be starting just yet
• I probably have a week or two to get it together
• I'm not really sure I want to go to grad school anyway
• I'll look into it later
• etc.

After inspirational conversations with my coach and my mother, however, I decided I would just start investigating it now, just in case.

And when I called the registrar's office at Hunter, I discovered that the application deadline was... TOMORROW.

(This is where the persistence part kicks in.)

The registrar needs a copy of my transcript. (I haven't seen my transcript for 12 years.) I know there's a copy of it in my files at my parents' house so I call home to see if Dad can locate it in the attic. Twenty minutes of looking later, he can't, and I'm ready to give up.

"Kate, I'll go to New Haven to pick up a new copy for you, if you need me to."

Hope comes back. I call Yale for a transcript and they say that I should place the order, but they can't guarantee that it'll be ready by tomorrow. Hope fades again.

"Kate, you're willing to pay Hunter money, they'll probably find a way to accept it."

Hope comes back. I call them and find out the procedure -- they need a filled-out application, registration fee, and transcript before 3pm the next day. Hope fades. Until... I discover on their website that they'll accept a copy of my diploma. Which I know my mother can locate for me!

Hope returns, and I try to register for class and can't. Hope departs.

"Try going to the Registrar's office."

Hope returns, and I can register, but only with permission of the math department, who wants proof that I've taken math before -- and might require me to take a placement test. Hope skedaddles faster than a bug on fire.

But I persist, hope clinging to the edge of me like I'm a canyon. The math department? All they want is for me to tell them my AB Calc grade from nineteen mumbledy mumble.

This back and forth goes on and on, with hurdles and hoops and obstacles at every step of the way, and hope coming and going like junkies on a seesaw. Truth is, if it weren't for the moral support of my parents and my coach, I'd have quit before I even started.

My point in all of this is that it worked out in the end. The obstacles that seemed so looming and permanent were actually made of sawdust -- but I didn't know that until I blew on them. It took grit, a couple of lunch hours, asking for help from people I knew I could count on, and the willingness to persist in the face of adversity.

Needless to say, I'm 1/6 of the way through the course already. What are the odds of that?