Right after Justin's wedding I decided I wanted to go back to school. I mean the car ride home from the reception I had this idea. So I enrolled in the Sign Language Interpreting Associates program at OSU-OKC, applied for financial aid and got my classes all lined up. A PELL grant was awarded in June, enough to cover books and tuition; awesome! I went back up to the financial aid office to decline the loans they also approved me for and asked if everything else was taken care of and set for the semester. They said yes and that I just needed to wait until August 5th to charge books to my account.
This last Wednesday I get an e-mail from the school saying there is a problem with some paperwork and my financial aid may be suspended. WTF?!? The next day I get an e-mail that says my grant was in fact suspended and that I have to pay $1,000 for the classes I'm signed up for.
I went to the school today to find out what the heck is going on. The financial aid office said I have too many hours but I can appeal that. Fine. She asked if I already had a degree and I said that yes I have 2 associates degrees. She said I can't appeal then. She did say that if I go for a Bachelors Degree I can have the grant money, so I asked if there was a bachelors degree that related to Sign Language Interpreting; Of course not. The only one they offer is in Emergency Responder Administration. So I asked if they had scholarships available. She said I'd have to talk to the Department about that. Fine.
I drive across campus to the department...the guy literally left for lunch 1 minute before I walked in. Wonderful. So I wait for an hour. While waiting I picked up the degree information for the Bachelors Degree and it actually looked interesting. I figured with the 2 degrees I have I should be able to get into the program.
The Advisor gets back and I explained to him about the grant being suspended. I also said that I was interested in the Bachelors degree (he is an advisor for that degree as well). He looked at my information and said that I needed an AAS in Police Science to get into the program. Well, shit. So he continues saying that it was designed for students who had completed the COPS program. Well I did! So I told him. Apparently since I graduated 13 years ago, the COPS program is now an AAS, when I went through in the first class it was an AS. So he looks at my transcripts and since I'm a certified officer he figured I'd just have to take a couple of classes to satisfy the AAS part and I could start the Bachelors. As he was going through my AA/AS degrees he realized I'm done with the AAS as well.
So now I will have a 3rd Associates, all three in Police Science, and AA, AS and AAS. I graduate with the AAS officially in summer 2013, yes, it's already passed. Then I will enroll in the Bachelors program and be able to use the PELL grant and should start as planned in mid August.
I still really want to take sign language and I will when I'm done with the Bachelors.
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