The Swan Song That Wasn't by Julia

The Swan Song That Wasn't by Julia - December 2016 Scholarship Essay

I am currently getting my master’s in social work. A big reason I am here is a project I did while getting my bachelor’s. I had a difficult time getting through my undergraduate degree. I excelled in school growing up. So, I expected the same in my college experience. At first I did succeed. I had a presidential scholarship to a community college where I did well in my classes and was able to pursue my interest in dance through a work-study program at the school. There I discovered psychology and was fascinated. I knew this was what I wanted to do with my life. In middle school, I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety, so I had the suspicion that I knew the unique life experience of the mentally ill.
I had no idea. After I transferred to a university, I went through a difficult break-up that I could not seem to get over. I started struggling in school and sought assistance to get me through. At this time, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I had a hard time with treatment and even ended up overdosing. My school work suffered a great deal. I did not have the presence of mind and support to know how to protect my grades during my downfall. A couple semesters I should have taken a medical withdrawal, but I did not know that was an option and failed several classes.
I finally committed myself to treatment. I began to crawl out of the chasm of despair I had wallowed in. I was able to return to school. It took me a long time to figure out the right place to finish my degree, and the type of degree I needed to pursue. I ended up at Troy University in Alabama pursuing a degree in comprehensive psychology. I would be 25years old when I would graduate instead of the expected 21years old.
The semester before I graduated I decided to pursue a research project for graduate students. I wanted to publish a research poster entitled “Sibling-Guided Social Training for Children with Autism.” With the help of my amazing research professor I wrote up this research proposal. It was difficult. I spent many hours poring over research and huddled in her office making revisions. I spent late nights and all-nighters researching and writing. It was the greatest labor of love I had ever created.
Finally, it was ready to submit. I got the word of acceptance and was completely overjoyed! I was an underdog, coming back from an epic loss, and I was fighting my way back to the front. I felt like a competitor again. I polished my paper proposal into a poster presentation. I would be presenting with students who had already completed their undergraduate degree and were solely committed to research in their graduate studies. I had my doubts of my competency, but in the end I was too excited, and too proud, to let my doubts win.
If I had completed this poster presentation early in my college career, or anytime before my bipolar diagnosis, it would not have been such a feat. It would have been just another achievement by an overachiever. A girl blessed with intellect and the personality of someone who loved research since she was in elementary school. But that was not the person who wrote the proposal and created the poster. I was: incredibly flawed, injured, and a failure. This could become my comeback, or my swan song.
The actual presentation was brief. I could have blinked and missed it. We put up our posters and talked to professionals who walked by about the research we hoped to do one day, why it was important, and what value it could have for future research on the subject. I was dressed up and had driven across the state. I was one of only a small handful of undergraduates, and many more graduate students. It wasn’t my swan song. It was my beginning.
What made it so important to me wasn’t that it was a big achievement or that it announced the reappearance of my old self. It was important because I proved to myself what I had thought was untrue, that I have value in this community. These professionals, these psychologists and counselors, these professors and graduate students, they became my community for the first time. It was the last semester before I graduated, and it gave me confidence that I could go out into the world and find a job in my field and succeed. It was a message I didn’t know that I desperately needed. It was a lesson I taught to myself. It was the beginning to my incredible future.