Saturday, September 6, 2008

Measuring Up

I hold myself to very high standards which, being a perfectionist, is not uncommon. Today was a monumental day for me. Five hours and 200 questions were to determine my fate as to whether or not I would be graduating in December. My 3.89 GPA means nothing, my papers and tapes and hours mean nothing. If I can't pass this exam it's over, at least until January.

Now I can admit that I could have studied more; I could have studied harder. Being me I know I can always do better. But it would seem that no matter what I did today was not meant to be my day. I started having panic attacks this week. I couldn't sleep last night which means as of right now I have been up for about 36 hours. I didn't care about the SAT or the GRE. Those were just gate keepers, tests meant to weed out low performing individuals from undergraduate and graduate coursework. But this test is my CPCE, administered by the National Board of Counselor Certification. This test is the most important academic challenge I have faced to date.

I bombed it. Most of us that took it today feel confident that we failed. Nothing I studied was right. The wording was off and hard to navigate. My specialty section actually included diagnoses from the DSM IV that I chose not to memorize because I constantly use my DSM IV as a reference. What was the point in spending fifty dollars on a book just to leave it on a shelf. What kind of test actually expects one to memorize hundreds of pages of diagnoses and symptoms?!?

I let myself down. I know that I am in the right career field and that I am meant to do this. I know I am competent and capable. I am finally feeling confident in my abilities and skills and then BAM! I let myself down. I quite possibly let down my family as I may have to wait yet another semester to finally walk across that stupid stage and get the diploma that I have earned. Stupid test. At this point I am holding on to little hope that based on the entire group's performance our mean scores will be computed and as long as my score falls within +/- 1.25 standard deviation I still have a chance. Maybe not a big chance but at this point I will actually settle for less than the best and take what I can get.

3 comments:

Laura said...

keep me posted. i know how you feel. i started working on my mba pre-reqs and my grades suck b/c the way the school has the deadlines set. it's meant for students who are full-time students. so now, i am going to re-take these classes at richland like i should have in the first place. my point is that i know i'm in the right major of study, but not in the right school. anyway, i hate these waiting periods...ugh. keep climbing! :D YOU ARE THE KATFUCIOUS!!

Laura said...

i don't think my previous comment did not corellate with your blog...sorry. I know you'll do great. I guess I needed to vent. lol...i'm such a dork.

Katfucious said...

Thanks chica! I totally got your first comment :-)