Graduate School: Finals Part II The things you don't know you don't know...can be very bad

Wednesday, December 16, 2015

Today is Wednesday of my finals week. I am creating this post but you probably won't see it until a month or two has passed. This is because this is a very serious issue that I will be dealing with for the next month or so and do not think it is appropriate to post until after. My cohort will not know until then or most of the people in my life because I have been told by the professor not to disclose this to anyone right now. I am not sure if he will ever be okay with my full disclosure but I can't publish this until he has posted my grade for his course which won't be until the issue is fully resolved. So here is what has happened to me the past few days....

Monday December 14, 2015

I studied many pain staking hours for the past week but especially over the weekend to study for my final for my Advanced Psychopathology course. This afternoon I went and took the exam. Now I know I did not do perfect, man if only, but I felt as though I had done fairly well. Last week my professor asked me to email him a copy of the paper I wrote for his class and I was very confused as no one else in my class was asked to do so. Therefore, after my exam I went to meet with the teacher to see what was going on. Long story and many tears later he let me know that he had a fairly strong case for "plagiarism" against me. The more we discussed my paper the more we both realized that I was taught citations incorrectly. It was clear that I was attempting to cite every source that I used but that they just were not formatted right and thus plagiarized. Hearing the "P" word was such an embarrassing and upsetting moment for me. I have never plagiarized anything in my life! Not to mention I spent hours writing that paper. I walked out of his office with his plan in my head. I was to take a plagiarism and citation course, read an APA citations related book, and then work with him rewriting the paper. Until all of this was complete he would be giving me an incomplete in the class. I was so nervous about what all of this would mean. Would I be able to do interviews and go out on practicum next year? Would I be put on probation or even expelled from my program? How would this effect my ability to get into the PsyD program that I have so desperately worked to get into? With all of these questions in my head I asked him the few that I could manage to say to him and his response was that he felt if I grew from this experience it would do nothing but help me get into the PsyD program...not hinder it. He also expressed how much he did not want to have me expelled and understood that this was just a misunderstanding and wanted to have me learn the proper ways of writing before it was too late. When we hit this topic all I could think about was how far behind I must be from my cohort and how slow I must seem. The meeting ended with him telling me to be sure to spend time with my family and enjoy my holiday break as well as to focus on studying for my other finals.

My other finals?!? Tuesday morning I was supposed to take a final for my Psychological Assessment course and so of course I was going to study late into Monday night. After telling my husband everything that happened, which of course I said through tears because all I could think about was that I had just lost my opportunity to get into the PsyD program and that I may have lost my opportunity to even complete my MA program, I went into my house and continued studying my note cards for my Tuesday morning exam. I was realizing I was having extreme difficulty because it was as if every second the "P" word would pop into my brain and I was filled with emotions from anger, regret, shame, and extreme sadness. I made a pact that I would tell no one but my husband because of these emotions that were coursing through my veins. One hour went by with me sitting on the couch, sad, unable to study...and then another...Finally I grabbed a drink and was determined to study. I created a game and took off with my studying until early in the morning as I was unable to sleep.

Tuesday morning I got up early (hating every moment of it because of how late I stayed up to begin with) and studied my note cards at home and then at school prior to the exam. Now I know that I could have done better on that final had I not been so stuck on what happened and by the time this is published I will actually know what my final score is but currently I do not know what it is. I had a high "A" in the course and so I don't believe that the exam would have pushed me too far down but I know that it was not reflective of my full capabilities because I was so disconnected from everything. When I finished my exam I went home and slept from 3pm until 6:30pm. I just needed to get away from it all. When I woke up I had a new outlook. I knew that I had made a mistake with the paper and I was fully determined to remedy it in any way I could, starting with making sure that I learned the proper ways to conduct citations and write a research paper. However, I put that all to the side knowing that I could do it but that I would have to come back to it later. I started writing all of my study notes for my last final in my Behavioral course determined to do much better and stay more focused than I was for my previous final exam.

Today is Wednesday and I just finished writing all of my study notes for my behavioral final about an hour ago. I decided I wanted to take a break from it and felt compelled to come here and write what has happened to me over the past few days in order to give my brain a little freedom. Again by the time you read this the issue will be resolved in some way or another and I will write what happened below but I wanted to give immediate recall of the events that have occurred now both for your understanding as well as for me to be able to let it go a little and put my heart into my last final as I should have done with my final yesterday.

Update... March 2016

It has now been 4 months since this whole thing started! Hard to believe really. Many rumors have went around since my teacher told the class we would not be getting our essays back because he was "dealing with a situation he has never had to deal with before" although then when I talked to him in person he said he had dealt with it but not an accidental case like mine. Anyway by the time I post this I am sure many members of my cohort are pretty sure that they know I was the one who did something wrong but aren't really sure what I did or what was done about it. So now they will all know the truth too. My paper was submitted last month after having to not only redo the paper but write a paper about the same topic but it couldn't use any of the same information I did the last time. My grades are done I am just waiting for them to appear on my unofficial transcript so I will be able to see and know what my final grades are and to remove the "Incomplete" grade from my transcript.

This whole situation has been a learning experience for me that although rocky at times I am glad that I was able to go through it now and grow from it rather than have it hit me even harder in the future by a teacher that is less understanding than the one who helped me this time. I will admit that this is still a little embarrassing to me because I hate to admit that I made such a grave mistake but it was clear that I just had a combination of incorrect teaching previously and/or forgot some of the proper formatting that may have been previously taught to me. Either way I feel so much better about how I do citations and write papers after doing the class I did during my winter break and reading all of the APA manual. Thank you to those few I did eventually tell who made me feel better about what was going on and helped me persevere over the situation and see the positive in it!

2017

Following graduation and now that I am completely out of this system I have to say that the teacher in question definitely went overboard, which I have been backed by many other teachers saying it wasn't plagiarism and was clearly just formatting issues. Looking back I hate how that teacher made me feel inferior and inadequate but I also love that I pushed through and proved I was stronger than the bull he wanted to attack me with!