Holy God!

Eight years after taking my last class at Colorado State University, I've just graduated!

You see, I left school 6 free elective credits short of my Bachelor's. I had to start my career, and I couldn't hang around another term just to take two watercoloring classes. (Free electives are ANY class, not part of the curriculum.)

So, I set out to work at Infobeat. However, due to some accelerated promotions, I went from a Junior Developer to Senior Developer very quickly...and I had no time to finish off my schoolwork as I'd expected. :-/

...


Time went by. Years went by.

...

Fast forward to 2002. I was getting panicked about my missing degree because of how hard it was to find my latest job. My fear was that with the tech boom now a bust, my resume was being tossed aside because it lacked a Bachelor's Degree. When I applied online with Monster.com, I had to say I had "Some College" work done. UGGG.

I decided to inquire about finishing my school work. I didn't get much help. I talked to CSU and my counselor and was told to re-enroll. I had no idea if I could just do the two classes or not. I requested an enrollment packet and filled it out...but for whatever reason, I never went through with it.

...

Fast forward now to December 2005. I decide, just because a fresh start was coming in 2006, that I'd like to find out, once and for all, where I stand on graduation. Was it possible anymore? If there was bad news, I at least wanted to know so I could stop speculating.

...

Step one was to simply write CSU's administration office. The Web site seemed to invite questions, so it can't hurt. I asked them about my credits and if they were still good and how hard it would be, if possible, to finish it out. They sent this:

In order to graduate from CSU you will have to resubmit an official transcript from Westchester and Advanced placement scores.

I suggest you talk to Computer Science and see of they agree that 6 elective credits are all you need. If it is only 6 credits of electives, you could register for our CSU online courses and not drive up to Ft. Collins.


Well that seems promising...sounds like I still am two classes away. So now, let's just check in with the Computer Science counselor and get this process started, right?

I email the counselor, asking the same thing and referring him to the email from the administration office. He sent this yesterday:

John:

Nice to hear from you. This may be your lucky day.

I pulled your old folder (which I happened to have kept),
and noted that you are correct that you only needed
6 hours of free elective to graduate. But since
you left the University reduced the number of credits
needed to graduate for most programs to 120 (instead of
128 in our case). I called Leola in Degree, and asked
her if you couldn't be graduated under the 120 credits,
since you had everything else. She is checking your
situation, but thinks this will all work out, and that
we can graduate you this spring without your having to
take anything else. It appears that I am the only one
on campus who kept your transfer records, so I need to
send them to Leola to re-evaluate, but once that is done,
she can approve your spring graduation.

I suggest you call her later today (970/491-7159) to
check that your graduation is approved, and so you
can give her the address you want your diploma sent
to in May (or early June).

Let me know if you have any questions.


Say, WHAT?!?!?!?! OMFG!11!!!1!1one!one!!

And now today, I call in to the degree office and...it's official! I'm graduated! And it's even better, I even got to graduate for the Fall '05 term, so I don't even have to wait until May.

My degree is in the mail!

This goes down as one of the biggest miracles and greatest moments in my life. :-) Wow.