It’s another year, another batch of people are posting pictures of themselves. In their precious kente. All dolled and suited up. The social media has not heard the end of it ever since we started this season. First we started with the lawyers, then the doctors and pharmacists, then the average people followed (did I shade your degree? Yes I did, come and beat me).

But all these different groups of people had one thing in common; regardless of the class (first class, second upper, second lower, third deeper, pass away…) They were all doing the same thing, the one thing I didn’t get to do when it was supposed to be my turn…

Graduate. One word that haunted me for days without end. Almost unbearably so.

For someone as loud and proud as me, I was eerily quiet during graduation season.

It was terribly sickening. This was the very first time I truly felt like a failure. It was a completely new feeling to me. Knowing that it was completely due to my own negligence. There was no one or nothing to blame. There was nothing that 30 days of fasting and prayer would fix. And trust me, I tried. I really did.

Now you might be wondering what exactly happened? Well, isn’t that what we are all here to find out. What happened to their valedictorian. (I laughed at myself typing that. Valedictorian where?! My dreams? Lol)

Here’s exactly what happened.

I had a grade missing from a required course (two honestly- but I told my family one because one is excusable but two? Sounds like I didn’t even go to school).

This is going to feel like an expose because it is. It is one of the convos that always have me feeling stripped. So strap up for this very bare conversation.

What made this failure hit deep, was just realising how it could have been avoided. If only I had not been neglectful. You see, there is no excuse why your first year grade is missing for 3 years and you just don’t follow up, that’s just lazy.

So even all the crying I “crode” I felt I didn’t deserve to be “croding” that much (you have my permission to laugh). “It’s all your fault” I said to myself countlessly. Constantly beating myself up nearly harmed myself in the process.

Let me let you in on what really happened. To be honest, I have grown so much and looking back at that girl, even though I am saddened by her choices, I could not be more proud of her now.

You see, if you didn’t already figure it out, I have been quite pampered since I was a child. Life was a breeze while my family was struggling. I cannot even pretend that I know how that felt or what those times were, because I was terribly shielded from all that.

Unfortunately for me, I did spend the years not doing anything for myself. All I did was go to school, write exams and go home. My family had my life figured out. Again, all this started from the little things.

I would never turn my homework in because I never did it. I would just get a new exercise book and continue with that. In addition to that, because I was so good in class and was smart, the teachers would always figure it out if they could not find my grades especially when I knew that I left the book at home or hid it because I didn’t have a lot of my assignments scored or even turned in because I was just never doing them or I was not sending them to the teachers because they were late.

LESSON 1: That bad attitude that you are hiding and not working on will fester. And when it rots, you will suffer from the consequences. Take the word of someone that it occurred to more than once.

So of course, when I got to the university and I first got a ‘D’ because they did not find my lab drawings, I acted surprised that ‘they lost’ my lab manual which was sitting pretty in my grandma’s storeroom.

Then the following year when we went into COVID lockdown and they asked students to do lab assignments online, I never did. Not at all. “I had done enough in-person labs. They should grade me on that”. Well, turns out they did not want to, so they didn’t (are we really surprised?). Thankfully they did not put an “F”. “We don’t fail people in practicals because there is no resit for the course. We just don’t input the grade so you can write a letter to retake the course and you can just get it inputted instead”

This dumbass girl, did not even think about checking why this grade was not showing but others were. She would say “Well, it’s University of Ghana, there’s thousands of students. It takes time”. Then when it took a year and still hadn’t showed up, what did I do? Nothing! You know why? Because in the past, I never had to do anything. Not for myself - My teachers, brothers and parents had that covered. I didn’t have to care in elementary school nor did I have it in high school. It was going to “fix itself” like it always did.

Jokes were on me. Eventually, halfway through my final year, last semester, my supervisor says '“if your grades are not showing, you should be worried because you will not graduate”. And this man said it like he knew something I didn’t (he did). After this convo, I go to the 3 departments, oh yeah did I mention it was three different courses all from first year?? Absolutely ridiculous. Oh yes and all of them were required courses. (***Inserts skull emoji because I’m more surprised than you. And I am the one with the degree who went to the school)

The first one, they said to write letters and details. I did all that, nothing.

Second one, the lecturer in charge thankfully taught me personally and he knew me and knew I took the course so he just took 3 seconds to find my account and input a grade for me. “See”, the lazy little girl in me said “It always works out eventually”. It’s just like the good old days.

I walked to the third office which was literally next door and this man looked at me and said “Oh you’re part of those I was once begging to take the course and now you realise you want to graduate. Sorry it’s too late. You have to wait till next year’s second semester to retake the course”

I began to cry and ask him. “It’s just one course, you’re missing 2 experiments score. I can just take some tests and you can score me. I don’t need to redo the whole course.” He even said “If you had even come at the start of the semester, this was like 5th week in the semester, I would have put you in this batch and then you could graduate with your mates”

The tears started from this day. I could not believe my ears (like I didn’t do this to myself). I cried, I prayed and fasted that God and the Holy Spirit would convict this man to just put in a grade for me.

But genuinely, thank God that He does not work like that. Because if I had not been humiliated to take a course with level 100 students as a national service person and sat in class with people 4 years younger than me and have those little boys hit on me, if all that had not happened, I would really not have learnt my lesson the way I did.

Everyday, I thank God, because as someone who would eventually get a master’s I thought if this didn’t happen, I might have still had that bad behaviour.

This is where I thank my boyfriend and my best-friend. The two people who found out the first and they helped me right through it all. I cried to them, had panic attacks that they walked me through. When my mom shouted at me and was severely disappointed in me, it was them that I cried to and I would not have made it through as smoothly as I did.

A separate paragraph for the boyfriend because if I hadn’t told you guys already, he is amazing. He would encourage me every week when I was stressed, sad and felt stupid after going to class. He would make sure I was cross-checking with my lecturer that anything I had missed was fixed. This man singlehandedly saved my degree the second time. Because unfortunately, I had learnt to follow-up on a missing grade but I still hated having to go to see lecturers. And when I might have had the grade entirely cancelled for what would have been an “exam malpractice” (it was a mishap in my submissions) which would have disqualified the entire semester’s results, he made sure I was not shying away from facing what was going on and spoke to the lecturer until it was resolved. As it turned out, if I had not gone to see the lecturer, it would have gone really bad. That “A” like your name, was all for you. I love you.

Did I still manage to oppress you single-ass people here? Of course. You want a love episode, here is your preamble (you asked for this).

But here’s the final thing I have to say even after this very long read, you’d realise people don’t graduate the year that they were supposed to. I didn’t, my best-friend didn’t and neither did my boyfriend (now that I think about it we have too much in common. Even in suffering. Yoh!). However, know this and know peace. You are not less human, less smart or less you simply because things went wrong. If university degrees were that easy, everyone would have them. People don’t even have birth certificates and they don’t have to study for that.

For whatever reason, if you find yourself in the place that I was, I had to write this not just for me but for you as well. It happens, it is not your fault, even when it is like mine. Just make sure, you’re not making the same mistakes. You’re not falling into the same patterns and/or harming yourself because that is definitely never the answer.

And it would surprise too, God does answer you. In ways you could never imagine. He did for me and I was even happier than ever before.

Finally, your family may not be happy about not sitting in a big assembly, post about you or take graduation pictures with you. That would happen but trust me and take it from me, they are still proud of you. They love you endlessly. A degree couldn’t undo it that easily.

So from me to you;

All things will work out and THIS TOO SHALL PASS (it did).

Stay loved, peaceful and joyous.

Stay Blessed,

Wes.

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End note…

Happy New Month Minions, we made it to the last month of the year. For your loyalty to me throughout this year, I plan to make this month a very active one here. So the posts for this month shall be this today, one on 15th, one on 22nd and then you guys will get the Christmas special. Which I promise to oppress you minions full time!! So mark your calendars and watch out. We are going to have a merry jolly Christmas.