Also, last year when I was in the tenth grade, before I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder, I had a certain manic episode in which during I wrote crude words on the computer in my literary magazine advisor's classroom. Thinking she was doing the right thing, she turned it in to the guidance counseler (a different one from the last story) and I was called in to her office during my history class. She was telling me, that from reading this thing I had written in 72 point font in less than a minute, that she knew I had the soul of a poet. Continuing, she asked me how I felt. For one single moment, I felt understood as I explained that I was more of an outcast among those around me, and that I felt like I was on the outside looking in. She said I needed to get out more and do things. She didn't think there was anything wrong with me because I had colorful barettes in my hair (in her own words, "Well anyone that has a guitar and rabbit barrette in their hair SURELY can't be that sad!"). I scoffed at her and her weird assumptions, and left. I never spoke to her again. I was angry that she had won the teacher of the month award for my school district. I plan never to see one of these women again unless it has something to do with fixing my grades.
"So you want to be a teacher, eh?" Mr. Barry, my guidance counselor, a man with a scarred face and I still can't remember if he seemed honestly like he gave a damn or not.
"No. I don't want to teach High School kids."
"Grammar School, then?"
"No. No teaching children. I want to write." I could see the horror, there. I had only recently come out as a writer. I had given up acting dumb, and I wanted to do something I love.
"Well, maybe you should have a back-up plan."
Huh? Going through my own life assuming failure? "No, that's all right."
"Perhaps a community college would be a good idea . . ."
But I wasn't listening. I had, roughly, this nasty epiphany:
Those who have abandoned their dreams will discourage yours.
and this:
No one dreams of being a guidance counselor.
And we trust our children's future to such people.
I was lucky enough to get a terrific one. She never judged, always supported my slightly off-the-wall career choices and opinions, and at the last convinced my parents and I into looking into sending me to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign--a school very few people outside of Illinois go to. Being from New York, I certainly hadn't heard of it before.
But, after doing some research and visiting it, it turns out that UIUC is one of the best engineering schools in the nation and is generally considered the "best kept secret in America."
I'm convinced that I'm ten times happier than I would have been at MIT (which I would have had the subject of UIUC never been brought up), and I have Ms. Corrazatta to thank for it.
Just as with all things, your mileage may vary.
My high school guidance counselor was also a complete moron. High school was the first time I went to a public school, so it was a big change. I could have used some good advice. Instead, she told me to take classes that were really below my level, so that once I knew what was up I had to take extra classes to play catch-up. Also, you'd think that your guidance councilor would act partially as your advocate with the school, but instead she always fought me on everything tooth and nail. She resisted every time I wanted to take harder levels of classes. My school had the policy that if you missed more than x days of a class in a semester you would lose credit for that class, no matter how well you did. I had really, really severe allergies to the point where I stayed home from school sometimes, and I was just often sick otherwise. So I exceeded the x days, and I lost credit for two classes (in which I got an A and a B). Rather than taking up my side, or at least being understanding, she backed the school 100% saying, "They don't owe you anything."
Now, here's the kicker:
At the beginning of my junior year we took the PSAT/NMSQT (the second part is for "National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test" which will be important). When we got them back, I had gotten a pretty high score. In fact, I had qualified to be a national merit semifinalist...only, apparently my guidance counselor and the others who were running the thing gave us the wrong test. There was a Tuesday test and a Saturday test, and they gave us the Tuesday test on Saturday, so the results were invalidated by the National Merit Scholarship people. They said we could count our first try at the SAT as our National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, but I didn't do nearly as well on that. (I found it takes me a few tries to get into my "groove" on a standardized test, so I did eventually do more than well enough on the SAT but not the first time.) Now, it's unlikely that I would have gotten a National Merit Scholarship, but some schools will admit you and even give you scholarships automatically on the basis of being a semi-finalist. Since I didn't have much money or good grades, I sorely need this, but I was denied due to my guidance counselor's incredible incompetence.
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