My life-changing phone call wasn’t a diagnosis, and it wasn’t a death. It was a woman who dutifully informed me that my program of study had run out of funding and would be closing immediately.
“But…what am I supposed to do now?” I blubbered, only a year away from college graduation.
“You can schedule an appointment with one of our career counselors,” the voice suggested. I laughed once, shocked at her advice.
I am the one who had her mind made up in the tenth grade. I am the one who decided to pursue a degree in Oral Deaf Education at a Christian college, the only school in the nation to offer it in a five-year undergraduate program. I am the one who flew an ocean away from my family to make it happen. I am the one who pressed on through loneliness, resisting the urge to transfer to my friends’ college. I had worked so hard to get this far. For nothing.
Read the rest here! This article is part of Sarah E. Westfall’s Not My Story Essay Series.
Sarah K. Butterfield 