Tomorrow, September 3rd I will be starting my masters. Honestly, it is still hard for me to believe, it’s been a long timing coming. In 2017 and 2018 I applied to do my masters at two schools outside of Canada. Since finishing my undergrad in Toronto I was adamant on doing my masters abroad. The first school that I applied to was in Europe. I did not get accepted into the program because I was missing a few credits and I had no way to earn them prior to the start date of the program. The second school that I applied to was in the United States. I got accepted into the program and picked my courses and everything but due to the significant cost of the program and cost of living abroad as a student I was not able to attend. After attempting two times and not succeeding I began to doubt myself and questioning if it will ever happen. I put so much pressure on myself. I was frustrated because my plan did not work out like and when I wanted it to. I wanted to give up and move on and live with the fact that maybe it was not meant to happen.
In January of 2019, something pushed me to try again and to look into other schools in Toronto that offered my program. After a few days of doing my research I finally found a school that offered my program and I started the application process. I completed the application and submitted it. From there it was a waiting game and that’s when my fear of self-doubt kicked in again. I started to overthink things, “what if my application is not good enough?”, and what “if I don’t get into the program?”. After a few weeks I took my mind off it. I patiently waited while consistently checking my email.
A few months later I finally got an email from the school. I was nervous and excited at the same time. It took me a while to open it because I was scared. After contemplating for so long I finally opened it. I skimmed through it looking for the words “congratulations and you’ve been accepted” but I did not see what I was looking for. I decided to fully read the email and saw something along the lines of “Unfortunately, we cannot offer you a position in the above program at this time. However, you have been placed on a waitlist...”. I was a little disappointed at first but after taking some time to process it I realized it is not that bad. At least it was not a rejection letter which meant that I still had a chance.
A month and a half later I get another email from the school while I was at work. I was even more nervous this time. In order to not ruin my day, I decided to wait until I was finished work to open the email. Finally, 6pm came and I was done work. I opened the email and this time instead of skimming through it I decided to take my time and read each word. As I read through it I saw « we are pleased to inform you... ». After reading the email I decided to log into the schools’ website to confirm what the email said.
With all that said I am excited, nervous and looking forward starting my masters in Immigration and Settlement Studies at Ryerson University this fall. The funny thing is I was always at Ryerson during my undergrad even though I studied at York. I was there so much that some people thought I went there. This whole process taught me the importance of timing and that things will happen when they are meant to happen. It also reminded me to leave things up to Allah (god) because at the end of the day he knows whats best.