I am sorry that you did not find my attempts in your class to be even satisfactory, and instead, I was deemed a failure in your class. Clearly, I was not a model student but I did make numerous attempts to try and rectify my status in the class. I can sit here and say that had you informed the class that you have given written comments on our papers, I would have known sooner the mistakes that I was making. I can sit here and say that had you responded to my emails when I wrote them and not when follow up emails were sent, that things could have been caught sooner. I can also say that had you not given a zero grade on a test without any explanation as to why, I could have learned how to fix myself for future classes. In the end, it is not your fault that I failed and unlike most people, I can own up to my mistakes, learn from them and move on. All I wanted was to be able to have a professor listen to their students without bias, guide them through the course when they had questions and acknowledge when someone was making an honest attempt to better themselves and not looking for pity. All I wanted was a fair chance at an education.
After a 10 year hiatus and a 5 year long comeback, I will not walk across the CSUN stage on May 22, 2014 at 6:00pm because I cannot afford the tuition without financial aid. My financial aid was cancelled today because of my fall grades. Your class was the only one that I failed.
I am not asking for a response from you. I could barely get that when it mattered most. I am not even blaming you for my failures at graduating. As I stated before, I own up to my choices, my relationships with people, my mistakes and myself. Like the many hardships from my past, I will move forward and I will push forward, and one class will not deter me from finishing what I started in 1999. I waited 15 years for this moment and another 11 months won’t kill me.
As I have learned from this experience, I know in my heart that I made an honest attempt to do right and sometimes things happen outside of your control, or attempts are not good enough, but either way, I learned.
In the future, please don’t turn a blind eye to someone looking directly at you. Please don’t turn a deaf ear onto someone relying on your guidance. Please don’t mute yourself when someone is waiting anxiously for a response. I know I was not a model student, but I was a student nonetheless.
You may have viewed me as a failure in your class, but when the day comes and my story is told, it will show otherwise.
I wish you the best.