Hard work does pay off

It has been a hard few months here at the Shoemaker’s household.  My wife recently graduated from law school.  She is in full prep mode for the Bar exam which is February 26 and 27.  She has been going to a Bar prep class every weekend since September and the end is in sight.  I am really proud of her.

I am almost done with school as well.  I will finish on April 28th.  I am in two classes now, American Art and Pop-Culture.  The pop-culture class is fun.  I have been writing papers on Star Wars, Star Trek, and Marvel comics which is a nice change.  My last term I have one class, Ethics.

Why only one class?  Well when my wife was raking finals in her classes I went down to one class for a term so that I could take care of everything while Jen worked on finals.  I really didn’t think anything of it, until a few weeks ago.

When the next term starts, since I will only be taking one class I will be considered less than full time.  It makes sense.  The only problem is that financial aid will not cover the class.  With all of our money being pored into the new business there was no way we could afford to pay the $800 for the class.  It looked like I would not be completing school, which was hard for me.  I have put a lot of work into school the past two and a half years.  I really wanted to see this through to the end.  The stress was high.

Feeling like I had nothing to lose I called my academic advisor.  I have to say Southern New Hampshire University has very helpful academic advisors.  I talked to Chad and told him what was going on.  He was leaving for vacation and it would be a week before he got back to me with options.

I got a call from him yesterday.  Because I have kept a 3.88 GPA for my entire college career, the leadership of Southern New Hampshire University have decided to give me a scholarship to pay for the class!  I will be able to finish!

Hard work does pay off.  And I learned once again the value of asking for help.  I have a hard time doing that.  I drive Jen crazy sometimes because of it.  She had been telling me to stop stressing about my grades and just do enough to graduate.  When I told her the news she told me “Thank you for not listening to me.”

I am anal when it comes to school.  I made a goal to graduate Cume laude and I have surpassed that goal.  I couldn’t have done it without the wonderful Professors and staffs and SNHU.  So finally, at 46 years old, I will get my degree.  I can’t wait for school to be over, so I can focus more time on my novel.

Just remember, hard work will pay dividends in the end.  You just have to keep pushing forward!