By Alexandra Zaver
When I made the choice to drop out of college in 2018, I didn’t think “to be determined”. Instead, I thought I knew for a fact that I would never return to the University of Kansas nor be forced into a position of righting my academic wrongs in order to move forward. Now, 8 years later, I am paying the price for something that my 18-year-old self set the tag on. Let me tell you, it is higher than I could have imagined it being at the time.
School has always been important to me even if back then I had not been ready to commit to a formal or college level education. I will preface with this: I graduated this year from Des Moines Area Community College with my associates degree and honors, a 4.0, and previously graduated from beauty school in 2021 with a 97% GPA. I was and still am brimming with pride that I had such an impactful academic comeback and was able to get back on track. However, that doesn’t negate my two-semester stint at the University of Kansas. I thought, for whatever reason, that when I returned to Kansas in 2025 after having lived in Iowa for about five years, that I had redeemed myself! Look upon me all, for I graduated with honors and exceeded expectations with my most recent degree and esthetician license!
My pride, akin to a big balloon adorned with a curled ribbon, was promptly popped with a Jayhawk shaped needle when I re-applied to KU and was accepted shortly thereafter on particular conditions. Even though I had forgiven myself for those past transgressions and failures, institutionally, they were remembered—while current me is a 2026 honors graduate, I am reapplying to a school in which I left on academic probation! Surely such earnest efforts would scrub my slate clean… right?
No, they wouldn’t and can’t. I was devastated. I still am a little bit, if I’m being honest. I have wanted to embrace the new and better me so fiercely that I forgot about the version of myself that struggled through school. That didn’t know how to study, and how to be a diligent student. This is so cliché, but it is funny how the past catches up with you, isn’t it? This is not a problem that I fathomed facing this year, but it is now a challenge I must overcome if I want to attend KU again.
For me, the question has not been whether I want to attend KU again. The answer to that inquiry is yes, a thousand times yes. That is part of why I moved back to Kansas, why I pushed myself beyond my limits academically in 2021 and throughout my time at DMACC. Instead, the question is this: if now, at 27, I had to look my 18-year-old self in the face and help her pick up the pieces, where would I start? Who is the kind of person and help she needed then?
A mirror in which you must face your regretful past does not impart pleasant reflection. I was angry, then saddened, and finally, resolute. I know now what I didn’t know then: I am capable of being a good student, of remaining on track, and exceeding my own vision and brightening the lens in which others see me with. While the road might drag on and seem never-ending, that is not the permanent condition of the situation I am in. Most things that are worth it in life you must work for, and a bachelor’s degree is no different. It challenges me because it is worth it, not because it has grown sentient and chosen to spite me.
So, I am doing something that I never could have imagined and that some might find ludicrous, and I am going to try my luck at KU once more. While my findings might lead me to choose another academic institution in favor of a totally fresh start, I am also not one to back down from uncharted waters. Put me in a rickety sailboat and push me out to sea, then see what becomes of me.
