From being a fresh transfer student at the beginning of the year to now coming up on my final semester. Eleven demanding months of academic rigor, 16 units over the regular semester and 10 over the summer session, now fully reflected in my degree audit. To have gotten this much completed while simultaneously self-representing in civil process and appellate proceedings has given me a massive boost in confidence over my own capabilities.
I finished at San Diego City College in the summer of 2024, and walked at the next commencement in the spring of 2025 after my first semester at SDSU. Now, in less than 6 months, I’ll be in another graduation ceremony at the university level from San Diego State; back-to-back graduation years.
With the start of the Fall semester looming, I keep reminding myself that at the end of this next term I’ll only be 9 units away from major program completion, 12 units from completing all requirements by the end of the Spring 2026 semester.
It’s been a few days since I graduation from San Diego City College on Thursday, finally getting to walk after having completed all my required coursework in the Summer of last year and my degree not issued until the conclusion of the Fall 2024 semester. Dated December 16, 2024 and received in the mail back on March 3rd of this year, it’s an accomplishment that’s been stuck in a state of suspense and nice to finally have played out in full.
I was curious as to how I would feel that day, having never done a graduation walk before; I had tested out of high school at the start of my senior year, obtaining a legal diploma equivalent by way of the California High School Proficiency Exam (CHSPE). Thereafter, I had made peace with living a life in which I would not be a college student/graduate, and the opportunity to walk for a graduation ceremony a faint and highly unlikely possibility. I never really felt like I missed out on anything special by skipping my high school senior year and its processions, and after 20 years of mentally treating graduation ceremonies as something so personally meaningless, was unsure where my perspective would land that day.
It ultimately ended up being a very gratifying experience. I wore my regalia while I took the dog out for a walk before heading down to Balboa Park to check in for the commencement ceremony in the early afternoon. It was nice to show off to everyone I know, and to get congratulatory acknowledgements from strangers throughout the entire day.
While it’s been great to bask in the accomplishment, reality doesn’t wait, and I immediately have the matter of financing the summer session and choosing classes for the upcoming Fall semester to contend with.
Not only that, the commencement ceremony also brought a bittersweet poignancy to matter. Getting my associate’s degree is something I’ve already done, it’s time and effort already spent that I no longer have ahead of me as my future but instead as my past; that much older and done through this life. And in a more immediate context, the challenge of putting these degrees to work and materializing a return on this investment—and pay off the student loan debt incurred to obtain them—isn’t that far away off. Seeing as how even graduate-level professionals with advanced degrees are facing high uncertainty and competition in the modern job market, getting academic credentials is only a part of the process.
This student life of mine is only slated to last for another calendar year, presuming everything goes according to plan between now and then. That means that on top of keeping things together academically between now and the slated finish line next Spring, I’ve also got a lot of other areas of personal development to vigorously work on: health & physical fitness, real-world social networks, creative output and hobbies, interpersonal relationship management, the list goes on.
All my adult life, my approach has been to keep my head low, do hard and good work, and learn as much as possible. Doing that independently taught me a lot, now being further reinforced by the standards of collegiate education in business studies. But I also realize it’s time to start changing tack and doing “more” to make something out of both myself and my recently-changed legal name.
Had the last two final of exams for this semester today, one at late morning and other in the early evening.
It’s hard to believe it’s already over and done with. As much I’m glad to progress and keep moving forward, there is a certain melancholy over how fast it all seems to be passing. One down, two more to go.
Time really seems to pass a lot quicker the older I get. I’ve been meaning to push an update, but with everything that’s been going on over the last few weeks, even my private journal hasn’t been seeing much action.
Last month’s points of distresses ended up being a massive time-sink for me. In the end, I followed through with attending San Diego State University and accepting the federal student loan being offered, finally entering the world of student loan debt after having successfully evaded it all this time. When it came to registering for classes, I enrolled in 16 units across 6 different courses. Using the university’s degree audit feature, I noted that my 69 units of transfer credits had me starting the equivalent of my third year at 58% completion towards my Bachelor’s and leaving only 51 required for completion—meaning that at a full-time clip of at least 15 units per semester and some infill during the summer/winter intersessions, I could potentially be done and ready to graduate with a Bachelor’s degree at the end of the Spring 2026 semester.
Getting used to having an academic workload again was a bittersweet transition, glad to have the opportunity to keep advancing my studies while at the same time resentful that my celebratory freedom from homework, exams, and that awful Canvas platform had to end up being so short-lived. It was a very “back in the car” a la *Jurassic Park* feeling.
Well, I’m back in Canvas again…
It also didn’t help that the first few days of the semester were lost towards preparation for my evidentiary hearing in my Civil Harassment Restraining Order case. That didn’t play out as it should have, with the letter and spirit of the law upheld. Instead, I found myself at the receiving end of even more judicial misconduct and failure to uphold the law. I have follow up actions planned, some of which I’ll be forced to move on fairly soon, but for the moment am dedicating all my care and focus to my studies first. I have a lot of vested interest—personal, financial, and opportunistic—in at least maintaining if not elevating my cumulative GPA and finishing my Bachelor’s degree with a high academic standing.
Beneath all of these short and long term goals is the pressure to self-actualize, and the anxiety of having a timeframe imposed on it. If all goes according to plan and I do complete my Bachelor’s in under two years, I’m under no illusion that it’s going to be a golden ticket to a prosperous happily ever after; even professionals with graduate degrees are having difficulty finding employment. And with everything going on socially and politically, I don’t even have the assurance that the student loans that afforded me this semester will still be around in the ones to follow. All that in mind, I have it in my head that it’s not finishing the degree that’s incumbent upon me, but also optimizing myself for life afterwards.
In these short two years I’m going to have at SDSU, I’m going to want to make the most of the resources available, from simple things like making connections with faculty/students to the more involved effort of venturing on campus to attend networking and career-focused events. Both of these simple actions, like so many other personal plans and projects, require moving past my hermetic state of being. To bring this long era in my life of keeping a reserved low profile and focusing solely on the required work in front of me to its end. To start assembling an online presence, including fleshing out this blog. To start building a real professional network. To polish my personal elevator pitch and overall image.
Feels like a daunting additional set of things to do, given how much my academic workload is taking up the vast majority of my time and I’m admittedly struggling to keep pace with. But it also feels like I’m still only starting, like there’s still so much more I can get out myself. The closer I get to that ideal personal state, the easier and more manageable things should start to feel, until I’m able to once again live in a confident state of flow I remember having in adolescence.
