Starting college is never easy. And starting college in a state you’ve never been to, after looking at some pictures of the campus on Google images, is even harder. But what if you were starting college in a state you’ve never been to as a young Asian woman with an undiagnosed learning disorder? Such was my university experience.
I started school at Western Washington University in Bellingham in 2018 pursuing a degree in psychology. I’d never once been to Washington, I’d never even moved houses before. I didn’t know anyone there, and my roommate never showed up, so I was also alone in my dorm room. This was the perfect storm that brewed the lowest GPA I’d ever seen, and the most debilitating depression I’d ever felt. The right decision was for me to move home and transfer to the University of Hawai’i at Manoa, where I started in 2019 pursuing a degree in Japanese language.
Where I thought I’d found the perfect solution to my rough start, I experienced even more hardship than I had in Washington. I seemingly had all the tools for success—a new car, a major I was passionate in, many credits from both high school AP classes and my classes in Washington—and yet I found myself failing every single class I enrolled in that semester. With the turn of every break and every first day, I vowed that this would be the day I turned everything around.
And by every midterm I got through, my goals changed from doing well to scraping by. Along with a few weeks after that, it changed from scraping by to not dropping out. I thought I’d see prosperity, and instead I’ve had four academic probation meetings and a delayed graduation date. It was becoming alarmingly clear that something was wrong beyond my location and not being used to college life. I couldn’t focus, I had absolutely no motivation to go to class despite the actual work being manageable, and I’ve considered giving up so many times. I decided to make a change.
Earlier this year, I finally got diagnosed as having ADHD, and started receiving treatment and medication. My grades haven’t magically improved, and I still have struggles with motivation, but now I receive disability accommodations from the KOKUA program (a program offered by my university). This has helped immensely, with professors showing me empathy, being understanding with deadlines, and test taking environments. I wish I had looked into this sooner, and I’m still struggling a lot with my grades and my classes, but at least now I’m shown compassion and it gives me the strength to carry on. I’m a senior now, and the fact that I can shoulder such an immense struggle and still be in the place I am is a point of pride for me. And soon, I’ll be able to add a bachelor’s degree to that statement too.