The SDSU Fall 2025 final exam period has been a capstone gauntlet on a very challenging year.
Back in January, I was a fresh transfer student having just completed all of the final requirements for my associate’s degree in the summer of 2024 and applied on a whim during the final month of the admission period for the Spring 2025 semester just to see if I would even be accepted. When I accepted the offer that was extended, I took on an accelerated curriculum to ensure that I’d be eligible for graduation at the end of Spring ’26. This would serve the dual purposes of minimizing student loan debt over more semesters, and allow me to graduate both one year after graduating from community college and on the milestone turning year of the next age decade in my life, reasons both practical and symbolic.
The months in between have been a mentally and emotionally demanding sustained pressure, the high stakes of this undertaking ever present in my mind. As an independent returning adult student with no financial support or safety nets, this has all been a very real do-or-die stakes journey. It’s only through both my own student loan debt and state assistance grants/scholarships that I’ve been able to even attempt this academic climb to begin with. So there’s no room for failure, either with individual courses or overall. Not only do I not have family to be able to fall back in an emergency, my obligations to my dog demand that I achieve continued successes to be able to care and provide for him.
Those fears and feelings of obligation to myself, my animal, and my financially supporting home state of California have been my sole motivators for the entirety of this year. With 16 units in the spring semester, 10 units over the summer session, and another 16 units this semester, this year has had only the briefest 1–2 week respites from the burdens of academia. Consequently, there’s so much I’ve sacrificed along the way. Gatherings with friends, holiday celebrations, engaging with my neighbors, weekend days dedicated to doing something special with the dog and maximizing his lifetime experiences, and so on—everything that didn’t involve my studies and tending to my pet’s basic needs.
And all those sacrifices carried a dual cost. It wasn’t just the forfeiture of the experience on my part, but also the toll on my interpersonal relationships. For as much as the words of encouragement and support flow when one pursues academic achievement, it’s not so simple and clean in practice. There’s a certain exasperation, and in some cases even resentment, for not having the bandwidth to be your usual self as it relates to everyone else. It takes the form of peer pressure to take “earned” time off and deprioritize academic obligations in favor of socialization. And the impatience of having those invitations declined. Or resentment for not being able to indulge a sudden and unplanned visit. The inbound communications dry up, and the endeavor feels that much more isolated and costly.
This balancing act of fears and expectations, worries of clinical depression/anxiety resurgence, existential demands and guilt, and academic course loads was harrowing enough in itself. But all the while, I’ve also been contending with the legal matters around my civil harassment case. My final petition hearing was on January 29th, a week into my first semester at SDSU. Since then, I’ve been managing moving it through the appellate process.
Right now, I’m in the final stages of this end-of-year crunch. All final exams have been taken, and I’ve only got a single written assignment to complete academically. By next week, all of the big burdens carried this year will be alleviated. The collegiate obligations of 2025 will be satisfied, and those other matters will finally be on their way towards their final resolution.
In other words, one more weekend to go before I breach the surface and am able to start stepping back into a life out from under all these burdens. Well, at least until the next semester starts.