Way back in the spring of 2007 I attended my first class in 33 years. I was filled with apprehension of the unknown and dread. I had no idea what to expect, exams, term papers, reading assignments. Here I was 59 years old, with a background in engineering attempting to get a Masters in Social Work, what was I thinking. This was down right stupid, at work everyone asked me why was I going back to school and in Social Work of all things. It was totally crazy. On top of all that, I was going as a woman.
So how did the idea of going back to school get planted in my head?
Well it all started when I decided to take early retirement and I started asking friends, what can I do to help the trans-community. I asked a friend who is head of Connecticut TransAdvocacy Coalition and she said get your masters in social work. I dismissed the idea, I’m not a people person, I’m just not good at handling other people problems. At lobby training in the Legislative Office Building, I asked a couple of friends, one worked at the Hartford Gay and Lesbian Health Collective and the other was a therapist, and they both said, get your MSW. No way, me become a social worker no way. Then I asked a couple of friends at Connecticut Women Education and Legal Fund (CWEALF) when I was there for a meeting, they said the same thing and while talking to them I told them that I wasn’t cut out to be a therapist. They told me that not all social workers are therapist, that their concentration was in community organizing. Hmmm….
One of the things that I do is get the mail at the Farmington Post Office for the Connecticut Outreach Society and one day there was a flyer in the mail from UConn School of Social Work for their S.T.E.P. program for people thinking about going back to school. Hmm…. I read the flyer, looked at the courses that they were offering and did some research on their web-site. I filed it way in the back of my mind.
In September of 2006 at work, they announced that they would be closing the shop within a year and that they would be offering tuition reimbursement. When I got home that night, I dusted off that flyer from UConn. The next morning I stopped by HR at work (she knew about Diana for almost a year) and I mentioned that I was thinking about going back to school to get my masters in social work, she thought it was a great idea. She also said that the company would pay for the classes while I was working and the classes would qualify for the tuition reimbursement once I was laid-off. So I filled out the paperwork and sent it in.
So in January, I found myself sitting in a classroom for the first time in 33 years in a room filled with strangers, well not quite, there was a woman there that I knew and I sat down next to her. She was a godsend. When the professor walked in she started to write the name of the class as she was looking around the room and she saw me. She wrote the name of the class as, “New Perspectives on Gays, Lesbians and Transgender Individuals”. However, the name on syllabus said New Perspectives on Gays and Lesbians”. She then read off the names of the students and when she called off our name, we had to say what we had our bachelor degree was, when did we graduate and from what school. When the professor got to my name, she called out my male name and I told her that I went by Diana (she always called me as Diana and I handed in all my assignments as Diana). Everyone was answering that they had their degree in sociology or social work and graduated only a couple of years ago, but I answered, that I had a bachelor in electronic technology, it was 33 years ago and I went to RIT. Talk about sticking out like a sore thumb.
Once I was laid-off, I transitioned; I then applied to become a matriculation student and was accepted. The only snag was when I sent in my old transcripts from RIT and Waterbury State Tech, they had my male names on them. One day I got home and the message light on my answering machine was blinking, it was a message from school, they had a problem with my transcripts and could I come in to straighten them out. I walked into their office and they took one look at me and they said, “No problem, everything is OK now”, I gave them a copy of my Probate order anyhow, just in case a problem came up later.
Now four years later, I will be walking across the stage in May. And I know I will be crying, these were the best years in my life so far.
One other thing, after I spent the amount that the company gave me for tuition reimbursement, I was talking to the HR company that was handling the reimbursement. They said that out of the over 60 people eligible for the tuition reimbursement, I was the only one to apply for it. it is sad that no one took advantage of a free education.
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