After almost two years without it, I decided on Monday that it might be a good idea to finally get my diploma from my MLS program at Simmons. When I graduated in the summer of 2002, I remember being told I could pick it up, or pay ten bucks to have it mailed to me. I thought it was kind of cheap of them to demand another $10 just to mail me the diploma; it seems like the least they could do to just send it to you. So I thought I’d go over and pick it up sometime, which I never got around to doing.

So imagine my surprise when I call the registrar two days ago, and I’m told that in fact, I haven’t graduated. Now, I’ve moved on, gotten a job based in part on the fact that I have an MLS, and have boxed up that part of my life, so to speak. Simmons thinks otherwise, apparently. I spoke with a helpful person in the GSLIS department who looked at my records and told me that for some reason some credits for history classes didn’t get transferred over after I dropped out of the dual degree program, so I was short eight credits and had never graduated. What they thought I was doing, having stopped taking classes and having never returned to campus, I don’t know, but they never asked, that’s for sure.

Yesterday, I was told that after a meeting of the deans, it was determined that I should in fact graduate on May 16, and that I had a half-hour to fill out and return a “petition to graduate” before the deadline. I feel like I’m probably that only student to ever take two years off before graduating after having finished every class. I’ll be sure to put that on my résumé.