To The Community

My name is Marcus Powell and I am graduate of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. I left that institution in Fall of 2016 with a degree in Psychology. Currently, I have moved to Iowa City and I am pursuing a Master’s Degree in Higher Education: Student Affairs. I originally hale from the City of Chicago where dreams come true to few in unique scenarios – I called myself taking a more practical approach of obtaining the dreams that I have. During this practical experience I have learned quite a lot about myself as I am soon to join roughly 9% of humans who have a Master’s Degree in this country. One of the main things that has helped me put things into perspective is Strengths Quest. It is weird to realize that something so new has been so helpful to me during this once again developmental stage.

Graduate school has been a tough journey as I entered the insecurity arena again, regarding my intellectual capabilities. I invite you on this quick journey with me to my time in elementary school when I was placed into a class for students who I assume were determined by the school to have a learning disability. During that time, it was tough me, being pulled out of class in front of the entire group of students was quite embarrassing. Lining up and walking in an organized line down to the room where I feel like I did not belong. Luckily after some time, I was removed from the class, which I believe was due to my mom speaking to the school on my behalf. Not long after that I was then placed into a gifted class while simultaneously being in a reading class that was below “my reading level”. I never speak about it but I do have moments of silence when I struggle with things and I wonder…what if I did not allow the placement effect how I think of myself. Unfortunately, it affected me but I never asked for help when I wanted to rid myself of those thoughts. As I continuously reflect and analyze I admit that I have always been quite critical of myself in many ways. I have only recently sought help to figure out those things that made the room small and uncomfortable for me when I entered.

Graduate school was supposed to be my escape, but I quickly found myself back in that hole the more I learned about the surrounding people and their accolades. It is great attending a program with top faculty, but there is also a little corner that makes things difficult for me as I do not compete academically. I stutter, tremble, struggle, etc. I remember one of the professors asking the class a question and I answered, but then I was asked to elaborate and I questioned if I was capable. My experience in the classroom has not been the only contributing factor as I questioned my placement and whether others felt like I deserved to be in the place I am currently.

Being waitlisted did not help with the development either, and what made it worse was that I was only able to talk about being waitlisted with the only other person who was waitlisted in my cohort. When it comes up in class excuses are made to disregard how I felt or in an advising session I am expected to realize that others had a similar experience. Do not get me wrong, the people that have contributed to those feelings of my experience being irrelevant are not horrible people and wanted help, but they did nothing but make things worse during that very moment which trickled into many other thought bubbles.

I think some of us can think back to elementary school when we lined up against the wall and everyone picked who they wanted on their team. The only difference now is that I am aware you will not always be first, but does not mean it will hurt any less. I just might be able to better navigate those feelings and figure out how long I am going to allow it to affect me. I am more capable of placing things into boxes and burying them deep in the ground – one day something might grow of them, but for now I would like for them to be silent.

I was scared to write this for two reasons:

1. I did not want people think I was sensitive or thought less of myself.

2. I did not want people to question their contribution.

But I realized that:

1. I cannot be afraid of what others think about me.

2. I want to share my story and thoughts because that is what I enjoy most about other people.

3. People should consider their contributions to the development of other people.