Hi. I know I haven't posted in a while, but the last month has been extremely stressful for me. I didn't want to write anything until I sorted out what I was doing, and got things figured out.
So that last first year exam that I needed to pass, I didn't pass. This means that a couple days ago, my advisor forwarded me an email contain my Negative Binding Study Advice, which means that I cannot re-enroll for this same study program at this university. The email wasn't a surprise, because I got the exam result about a week earlier, but all in all it's a pretty big let-down.
The thing is, I was having so many doubts about it. I didn't feel any better about the exam the second time than I did the first time. I guess I have good reason to trust my gut, because I got a 4.7 on it the first time and a 4.8 the second time, so I really didn't do much better. Not only that, but I had been so behind on the credits that I needed from my second year, on top of worrying about my first year. Everything was piling up and it was becoming so very stressful for me, and I realize that it was all my fault because I could have stayed on top of things better, but I didn't. By now, there's no going back. There's just starting over, and trying to do better next time.
Even before I got those test results, even before I knew for certain that I wouldn't be allowed to continue, I applied for the University of Idaho and bought a plane ticket back. I don't ever for one second regret making the decision to come here to the Netherlands to try to earn a degree here. The restrictive nature of universities in the Netherlands has changed the way I look at school in the US. It's a bit complicated to explain, but I had a really hard time caring about the classes I was taking at Boise State 3-4 years ago. In the Netherlands, there is no class options. You don't get to choose what classes you take. You are assigned classes, and you have to pass 100% of those classes to graduate. I liked that at first, and I guess it made me take things a little bit more seriously. When I was at Boise State, I didn't put much (if any) effort into my "general requirement" classes because I wasn't taking them seriously. I feel a little more prepared for that this time around, for U of I. I'm actually excited for general requirement classes. Do you know I haven't taken a math or science class in over 4 years? Not that I ever really liked math or science that much, but that's beside the point.
Also, I think if I hadn't come to the Netherlands I would never have gotten into things like marketing. Now, I don't know if I'm going to stick with that in the long run, but for now (and looking at the degree requirements on U of I's student portal), I'm so excited for it. My study here in the Netherlands was more like an everything-about-the-EU-study-with-a-hint-of-international-marketing. Before I came to live in Europe, though, my focus was on foreign languages, and to be honest I just really don't know what I would do with only foreign languages. I never wanted to be a high school foreign language teacher, and while interpreting does sound interesting I just don't think it's what I want to do. From high school, though, I never had much interest in anything else.
Not to mention that I've experienced so much while living here, and I've become so much more independent. I'm so grateful that I had the opportunity to be here and learn all the things about myself and about the world that I think would have taken me much longer to learn from where I was before. No, I don't regret the time or money that I've spent here in the Netherlands. I'm a little sad that everything I had planned didn't play out, but I'm excited to make changes and move forward.
Long story short? In 9 days I'll be on a plane back to the US, and I'll get to see my parents and my cats, and legally drive cars, and not worry about converting currencies, and all the other things you can think of that make it nice to be coming back.
