Mankind is a sucker for a good story, especially ones about the past. With that said, stories about the past tend to be tinted with rose-colored lenses. History rarely, if ever, is a squeaky-clean narrative. While that applies to kings and conquerors, it applies to the common man as well. And I’m certainly no exception. Thus, YAH BOI will tell the story about his finest hour; battle-scars and all.
But first, let’s paint some lane-lines. When I say The Machine, I’m referring to my alma mater and all of the dark ways that the Academic Industrial Complex behaves. This includes financial incentives, bureaucratic red-taping, preferential treatment for students with cleaner transcripts, and little tolerance for those who don’t conform to their molding. Later in the article, The Machine will expand to include corporate employers as well; it’ll make sense in context. This article will hit with raw truths and profanity. So drop a dislike on your way out if that’s a problem. Agents of The Machine are already sharpening their pitchforks…
Dropout Year
Late 2013; myself and hundreds of other students at my alma mater got our financial aid cut, suspiciously around the time when the university wanted a state-of-the-art office building. I was one semester away from graduation, but with no cash in my bank account to pay for it, nor access to enough credit to pay for the final semester. YAH BOI was certifiably out of options.
For some background context; I was renting a room from a former family friend at the time for below-market rate. The deal was simple; graduate, get a real job, then get out. It was a fair deal. With that said, the fair deal didn’t anticipate me being spat out by The Machine for reasons out of my control. Needless to say, the landlords weren’t exactly thrilled with my newfound predicament, but were understanding nonetheless. With that said, they were also keen on not having a forever-tenant. Thus, I needed to stretch my career wings and fly…quickly. Failure to do so would’ve certainly carried housing ramifications.
Only a fool takes a loss completely motionless, and YAH BOI is no fool. As soon as I found out the shitty hand that I was dealt, I updated my resume and then posted it to Indeed, as well as scouring Craigslist, BlueReddit, and every other conceivable job site in between. I had secured a job interview with a small analytical chemistry lab that was down the street from where I lived. Thus, when the semester ended and the calendar flipped to 2014, I started working at the laboratory.
I drove a shitbox 1992 Ford Tempo that year and socked nearly every spare dime away that I could. This came despite being under the gun of some back tuition I couldn’t afford to pay and some lingering medical debt (story for another time). Make no mistake, I was in fight like hell mode; pay attention, this becomes relevant later.
During this time, I was officially notified that my alma mater had dropped me from the student roster; a move that legally meant little but was symbolic abandonment. A few months passed and I had gotten the threats of collection off of my case, sacrificing fixing my defroster during the frigid New England winter in order to do so. I didn’t care that I used the ice scraper on the inside of my windshield in order to do so. I had to turn down social outings because I couldn’t afford them and got callously mocked by those close to me over it.
I got taunted by this stupid fucking meme countless times during Dropout year.
Spring 2014 rolls around; the second weekend in May to be specific. It was Graduation Day for the Class of 2014. I drove by the venue on my way home from a forgettable task, and it felt like an utter icicle being stabbed through my chest cavity. It was depressing seeing something that I was so close to, yet had been walled off from. Call me soft, but I wanted nothing more than to avoid the area and sulk for the rest of the weekend. Which I did. But the sadness and self-pity quickly evaporated, leaving rage in its place. To quote Jocko Willink “Good”. Why? Easy: Depression is a de-motivator, while the latter emotion propels action. And a whole lot of action was needed…
Fall 2014 had rolled around, and YAH BOI had done it; through sheer force of will. I had saved up enough cash to pay for my final semester. My bosses had dangled the false hope (more on that later) in front of me that a degree completion will yield a promotion. A way out had formally announced itself, even if it was quietly there the whole time. I went to my former academic advisor’s office to register for classes starting in 2015. Shortly thereafter, YAH BOI had finally killed his biggest adversary, thus setting the stage for another one to fall…
Senior Year Pt. II
January 2015 rolls around, and I was back in college for what is now dubbed as Senior Year Pt. II. I had some classes that weren’t all that difficult. In fact, almost all of them were total cakewalks. All except one; Organic Chemistry II (Orgo 2, for short). It was akin to the final boss. The course had a reputation for being one of the most difficult undergraduate courses on campus. The class had a 30% pass rate for first-time students, and that was under the best of circumstances. And I was entering the course from a lengthy involuntary break. Thus, I wasn’t starting from the best of circumstances.
The professor (yes… that one) sent everyone a rubric at the beginning of the semester. Like most of these documents, it laid out the professor’s pet peeves: the attend tutoring for extra credit mechanic and other such foundational information. My eyes darted toward the scoring system to see what numerical values correlated to letter grades (it was not as straightforward as one would think). All the way at the bottom of the rubric was a D-; the lowest possible passing grade was a 55. Save that; it becomes important later.
I soon found myself inside two of my professor’s offices. I had developed a reputation for many things, but there were surprisingly still at least a few professors that wanted to see me succeed. It was jarring; having the same conversation twice, verbatim. Both professors started off asking accusatorily.
“Why have I not seen you in over a year?”
“I dropped out.”
Both professors smelled blood in the water “And why did you drop out?” as if they had just become FBI interrogators.
“My financial aid was cut and I couldn’t afford tuition” The professors immediately let off for a moment.
But then they pivoted to a new line of questioning “And what did you spend the past year doing?”
At that point, I updated them; worked at an analytical chemistry lab, did stability studies, calculated flow rates, revised SOP’s, et cetera. They both leaned back and nodded approvingly; their curiosity satisfied that I was indeed, not a total and complete fuck up. I told them of my current situation; my final semester, pass and I’ll graduate, thus landing a promotion. The conversation paths diverged a bit; one professor wished me luck, while the other hit me with a crucial line.
I’m willing to ensure that happens, if you are.
Check. I left that professor’s office, even more determined than I previously was. Good; I needed every fucking ounce of it that I could get. The semester went on, and Orgo 2 pulled absolutely zero punches. I held on for the first half of the semester with a floundering D+/C- average, with some assignments being outright failed (see above; not starting from the best of circumstances).
There was an exam about 60% of the way through the semester. I found myself struggling with the material mightily. I toiled through countless tutoring sessions, clocking in nearly 30 hours per week to studying for just that class throughout the semester. Nothing short of a Herculean effort would’ve sufficed for this course; the others I could, and practically did, pass in my sleep.
The day of the exam came. I gave it everything I had, I felt as if I had gotten my ass truly kicked. My thoughts started spiraling OH God, my landlords are gonna kick me out if I fail. This class only comes once per year, and I can’t live in limbo another year. The spiraling continued for several more days. Then, the exam grades came back; 77. I scored a seventy-fucking-seven and felt elated! It was no ordinary C+, it was a much-needed lifeline. YAH BOI officially had a fighting chance, slim as it was, heading into finals!
It was this point in the semester that the professor was drawing a molecule on the board. She asked a difficult question to the class, only to be met with momentary silence. I threw out an answer, which was technically wrong but directionally correct. She sighed and pointed out my mistake, but then rebounded with “Dan, I wish I could just give you an A based solely on class participation”. It was both a public acknowledgement of the hard work that I had put in, but also a shot across the bow that my command of the material was still insufficient.
The class then transitioned. The professor wanted to give a standardized test for the final, thus, she dropped the hydrogen bomb. The final exam would be the American Chemical Society (ACS)-provided multiple choice exam. The final month of the semester no longer saw new material being taught but rather how to pass the exam; tricks that the ACS liked to throw at test takers and how to counter them, how the test is scored, et cetera.
One day late in the game, I was inside the lobby of the shining new office building of the university; the one that had indirectly caused Dropout Year. Originally, I had grown bitter about the graduation ceremony itself; I simply wanted nothing more than to walk off of campus with both middle fingers in the air, flipping off The Machine that had spat me out so callously. However, something clicked when I saw the cap-and-gown measuring event.
In an act of defiance that bordered on entitlement, I insisted on getting measured for my graduation cap-and-gown. Why? Simple; The Machine would’ve preferred that I no-show that day as I originally intended to; they would’ve absolutely loved not having to call my fucking name. Fuck them was my thought. I decided in that moment that I was going if for no other reason than to plant a flag into the fucking ground. Outside of the sheer defiance of The Machine that showed no interest in preventing Dropout Year from happening, I also felt a one-time event horizon. Daniel, if you don’t go, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life. It was sealed. I’m fucking going, come hell or high water.
I returned to my Orgo 2 studies with even more zeal than before; an unlocked level of hyper-focus and effort that I didn’t even know existed. Despite barely having enough to fix the rattling sound in my Tempo’s engine, I instead bought as many practice exams from the ACS as possible at $10-a-whack. I failed the first few attempts, but that was alright; YAH BOI was gaining valuable intel…
The calendar flipped to May, and it was Mother’s Day, which meant that the final exam was merely days away. I knew that the ACS Orgo 2 final exam had a high likelihood of ruthlessly slaughtering my chances of escape (and all the downstream effects that would’ve wrought) if I wasn’t absolutely prepared. Thus, I needed all the study time I could get my hands on, and sacrifices had to be made. The sacrifice in 2015, among many others, was celebrating Mother’s Day. Yes, you read that correctly and yes, I’m serious. I cancelled Mother’s Day, much to the passionate disappointment of my college landlords (though Mother herself was relatively unbothered by it). I went back to the salt mines of Orgo 2, utterly hellbent on passing.
Exam day; the final boss. I filed into the lecture hall, and the proctors sat all of us misaligned from each other to discourage shoulder-surfing the row in front of us. With that said, I didn’t need to; it seemed like everything had just…clicked. The ACS exam seemed like it was lobbing slow-pitched softballs at a Major League slugger. It took me only half the allotted three hour time limit to take the exam. I strutted out as if I had just grown an extra six inches of height. I just viscerally knew it; I did it. Repeat I FUCKING DID IT!!
YAH BOI walked right through the rest of his finals like he was hunting at a petting zoo. The next few days I had spent nearly every hour checking my grade in the online portal. The multiple-choice exam was obviously graded same-day; that was the easy part. The over-worked teaching assistants had to put all of the data into the scoring rubric. I was eager to see the result.
I logged in one day, roughly a week before I was set to walk across the stage at graduation. I saw it, my final grade; D-. More specifically, I saw my numerical value. 55.89; the rubric stated that 55 was a passing grade. YAH BOI had survived the meat-grinder despite all of the odds stacked against him by less than nine-tenths of a point!
Graduation Day. I drove to the event early on, ahead of my four invitees. I waited around under the May sun, somewhat looking forward to it. Then I came inside the venue and took my seat, the sweat from my hands had started to pour through my name card to hand to the name-reader at the stage. My blood pressure rose in anticipation. My mood had started to lift.
LeVar Burton was the graduation speaker. He lectured us about how the world’s gonna need your A-game, so bring your A-game or stay your ass home! The line then started moving, I was practically giddy. I found my four allotted invitees in the crowd. Then…the big moment came.
I handed my name-card to the attendant. His name was called. Much like Eminem, my knees were weak, arms were heavy, and palms were sweaty. Though, I still managed to trek across the stage. Upon receiving the branded blue-binder, I felt elated; debatably the happiest I’d ever been in my life (save for the state championship story my senior year of high school), and definitely the happiest since.
I was red in the face yelling victoriously at the top of my lungs. The moment that The Machine was forced to give me despite very clearly not wanting to 18 months ago had finally happened! I was literally jumping for joy and bear-hugging classmates as if I had just won the goddamned Super Bowl. YAH BOI got into his 1992 Ford tempo and blared Good Morning by Kanye West as he literally drove into the sunset.
Epilouge
I got laid off from my laboratory job shortly thereafter. I felt absolutely no emotion after the phone call. After all, I had a fleeting suspicion that something like this might happen. HR had become noticeably less responsive to my e-mails about post-graduation logistics in the weekend shifts that I was working in the months leading up to the stage-walk. Thus, I hit the campus career fair before finals week.
I landed a job at a company that I met at the career fair. Though, none of what I did during my Dropout Year was acknowledged as professional experience. New gig; back at the bottom all over again. As time wore on, the analytical laboratory job stopped responding to reference checks to confirm employment, though I had kept my W-2’s as proof (Pro-Tip, by the way). It seemed like everyone was hellbent on trying to gas-light me into thinking that 2014 never happened. But it did happen.
I wish that I could say that those closest to me were supportive of 55.89: the monumental come-from-behind-victory story. But that would be fake news. Instead, several in my inner circle got-and still get-inconsolably angry when the topic of my dropout year is brought up. Accusations of not a good example to set for the kids flew like light particles through space. The preferred message was/still is clear; Do not talk about Dropout Year. So it wasn’t just The Machine that attempted to erase my history. Everyone thought they were Brad Pitt, and that Dropout Year/55.89 was Fight Club.
For the longest time post-graduation; I didn’t discuss the iconic saga of 55.89. Not out of shame or imposter syndrome (which isn’t real, by the way). No, I was cautious about what I revealed about the past to safeguard my career reputation. I didn’t want every mistake to be attributed to and that’s why you barely fucking passed. After all, The Village loves their control tactics…
I had finally decided on my first tattoo-after years of clowning on the artform-and I had chosen to commemorate what had become the major pivot point of my life. The design; 55.89, with a graduation cap and a 2015 tassel. It’s as much a commemoration of that turbulent period of my life as it is a middle-finger to The Machine and those who prefer to pretend it never happened.
The social impact was predictably negative, though ask me how many fucks I gave. For those who have seen the tattoo, very few approve of it. A blind man would swear that a swastika was inked onto my flesh given the reactions of those in my inner circle. For awhile, it ruined wearing cargo shorts for me (but, see above: ask me how many fucks I give). A small price to pay for the seismic change in my life trajectory after pulling off a nerdy though still Rocky-esque comeback story.
I tell this story now much in the same vein that I insisted on walking at the graduation that I originally planned to no-show. Because in the absence of my aggressively vocal claim-staking and stubborn actions, the default narrative of The Machine and its cheerleaders would be a systemic erasure of this saga. And I refuse to accept that. Time, career accomplishments, greed, and a historic S&P 500 bull-run have also insulated me from much of the negative stigma (real or perceived, mostly the latter) that 55.89 would bring. In layman’s terms; I no longer fucking care what “The Village” thinks about my past.
You will not erase my history, ugly as it may be…
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