this is my building, I am a college student, I am so privileged.” And I turned away in tears.
I didn’t stay in my first English class after the third day, however. I sought out my English advisor and Director of General Studies and explained to him I didn’t believe I could learn in that course, “It teaches you to write, and I know how to write,” and I showed him two of the books I had written. He looked at my writing, then handed me a list of classes and said, “Pick out the one you want.” I glanced at him and suspected he thought, “…what the heck, she’s not going to last anyway.”
As it turned out, my advisor had another thought. Tech sent me a copy of a letter he sent to the Associate Dean of Arts and Sciences. In it, he requested I be allowed to substitute two advanced English courses for the two required freshman composition courses. “I have examined a book and several articles Mrs. Nolte has published,” he wrote. “As a result of her own self-education, she has attained a level of writing ability far beyond the capabilities of most college graduates. It would be an immense waste of her time and talent to take the freshman courses, for she is far beyond what they cover.” He suggested the advance courses would “enable her to write critical essays more challenging to her writing ability.”
I, the lowly freshman, the one with the inflated head who could select any advanced English course, chose a junior class of short stories, taught by the head of the English department. I found the classroom, walked in and then stood uncertainly as I glanced around at the small class. The professor asked, “Can I help you?” I explained I was enrolled in his class, and he answered, “You can’t be, my class is full…but, oh well, sit down.”
I sat on the front row and listened with rapt attention to the discussion of the short stories. Yet later when the professor handed out the first test, I was so traumatized I could scarcely read the questions, even though I knew many of the answers. I flunked the test, completely bottomed out. And I thought, “wait till my advisor learns of this.” Devastated, I swallowed my pride, crawled into my instructor’s office and asked for help. With his suggestions, I earned a B grade in the course with upperclassmen. As an ironic note: it took this writer a fourth of the semester to learn to write a critical essay in the preferred form.
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