Being rejected is never a good feeling.
I was recently rejected by my two top graduate schools for Audiology. I took the news rather hard and stayed at home for the weekend, hoping my mom could somehow put me back together. I took the news so hard that I cried every day for a week and started anti-depressant and anxiety medications. When you’re rejected from something you’ve strived towards for four years (or more), it’s not easy to cope.
I kept wondering what I would do and how I would explain to my friends that I had no idea what the hell I would be doing after graduation. You feel humiliated and lost when you suddenly don’t know what you’re going to be doing with your life. I’ve always had the mindset that everything happens for a reason, but it was hard for me to keep this mindset when it came to graduate school, taking me a couple of days to wrap my mind around it. I knew I wasn’t an overachiever, but I felt like I would at least get an offer from one of the two programs.
This was a traumatic experience for me. That might sound dramatic to some until you’re in the shoes of someone that can do nothing with their bachelors degree without a masters and have a four year long plan come to a screeching halt a few months before graduation.
Now that I’ve had a month to reflect on graduate school throug an incredible suport system, I’ve realized that maybe this wasn’t the path for me.
As much as I loved the fact that my career helps so many people and that I would have such a pristine profession, I knew I was going to be miserable in graduate school for four years. Maybe I was meant to do other things that will benefit others instead of spending more time in school. And maybe you are too.
It’s important to remember that this disappointment is temporary. You WILL find something that you love and score your dream job one day, you just have to go through some low blows to get there. When people ask if you’ve heard anything back, reply by saying that you’re “exploring other options” instead of flat out saying you were rejected.
This was just a setback, not to label you a lost cause. If this is something you truly love, call the admissions office and figure things out. I haven’t been strong enough to pick up the phone yet, but you should be. Don’t take rejection as hard as I did. Just because things didn’t work out the way you had planned doesn’t mean that something bigger and better isn’t waiting around the corner.
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