I never would have thought in a million years I would be writing a blog post like this. I always thought that I would immediately go for every dream opportunity I would get. But I’ve come to learn that sometimes God will let some dreams come true and make us realize they are not what we really wanted after all.
In 2018, I had an opportunity to spend a weekend at Georgetown McCourt School of Public Policy and I fell in love. I learned so much about the school, careers in public policy, and I got to meet some pretty amazing people. I remember thinking “if I can get my masters, I would sure love to come here.”
Fast forward to three years later, just hours after my graduation ceremony from undergrad, I received a letter of admission into the Georgetown McCourt School of Public Policy. I didn’t even finish reading the first paragraph of the letter before tears began falling from my eyes. “I GOT INTO GEORGETOWN! I GOT INTO GEORGETOWN!” I screamed all over my house. I could not believe it. I remember saying weekly prayers that my application would be favored before the admissions committee because I genuinely thought I wouldn’t be admitted. But looking back, my application was so strong, any graduate school would be happy to admit me!
Receiving an admission letter from Georgetown was indeed a dream come true. Georgetown was my dream school and upon acceptance, my eyes and mind were focused on starting there in the Fall. I had applied to two other public policy schools, but their admission announcements were not as early as Georgetown’s. So I made up my mind that Georgetown was the school for me, but I waited a while to enroll because my amazing friends were going to pay my $500 enrollment fee as a birthday gift in March.
Then April 1st came. I was ready to enroll into Georgetown and pay my enrollment fee. I opened the school website, signed into the portal and I was ready to go. Minutes later, I then got an email notification about another policy school I applied to: University of Maryland (UMD), College Park. My mouth dropped. UMD had admitted me and awarded me a graduate assistantship. “Hunh, is this real life?” I thought to myself. I was grateful, but bummed. Why bummed? Because this meant I had to put a pause on enrolling into Georgetown and potentially now consider UMD: my not-so-dream school.
Both schools had an enrollment deadline of April 15th, so that meant I had less than two weeks to make a decision that would impact the next two years of my life. Can you imagine the stress? I was literally at a crossroad with the two schools. I saw how my inability to make a decision on which school to attend affected other areas of my life like my job, my daily routines, my communication with friends and family, and sleep! I was barely getting any sleep y’all.
Gradually, I was also putting up a wall between myself and the Lord. I was at a crossroad between the two schools and I felt like God was not trying to help me make a decision. When in truth, I was the one not allowing Him to help me. Proverbs 3:6 says In all your ways, acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths. Simple! Acknowledge God. He will direct your path. But instead of acknowledging God, I ignored Him in this area. I didn’t want to be vulnerable because I knew the minute I let my walls down, I would have to submit my will to His and hear something I probably did not want to hear.
Time was ticking and I still did not know which school to pick. I was having informational interviews with current policy students, emailing professors and various faculty, further researching both schools, but I was still stuck. I finally decided to go to the Lord about it rather than continue building this wall of frustration around myself.
I simply told God “Lord, I don’t know what to do. Both schools are great, but I want to go to Georgetown” and the Lord asked me: “do you really want to go to Georgetown, or is it the name you’re after?” I was struck. “God what do you mean is it the name that I’m after?” I remember going back and forth on why I really wanted to go to Georgetown. I had a listtt of reasons and most importantly, it was the school of my dreams….duh! And doesn’t His Word say “Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart?” (Psalms 37:4). So why was this decision so hard? I went back and forth with the Lord for about a week. April 15th was inching closer and closer and I felt like I was drowning in frustration at this point.
Then I stopped. I gave up trying to go back and forth with the Lord, and I thought “if this decision is so hard, the Lord is trying to say something here.” So I surrendered and said “God I really do not know what to do, nor which school to pick. HELP. ME.”
Again, the Lord asked me “do you really want to go to Georgetown, or is it the name you’re after?” I sighed. “Why is God asking me this?” I thought. “Does He not know what I experienced in 2018 when I visited the school? Did He not see how I enjoyed my time there? Does He not remember the reaction I had when I got accepted? If He didn’t want me to go to Georgetown, why did He allow me to get admitted?”
The answers to these questions will make this blog post longer than I intend it to be and it will take away from the point of why I am sharing this. So I will keep it brief.
Isaiah 26:3 says “You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you!”
For so long, I had kept my thoughts fixed on graduate school, finding money for school, and how things would look in the Fall for school. Rather than have my thoughts fixed on how God will help me get through school, provide for me in school, and show me the best pathway to follow with school… I had kept my mind on other things so much so that frustration had no other choice but to grow because my mind was not stayed on my Creator who would help me make an informed decision. This reminds me of the story of Mary and Martha (Luke 10:38-42), and I was definitely not being a Mary here.
When I finally surrendered, when I finally decided to genuinely let go and let God: I had peace. Over the course of that following weekend, I asked myself some tough and serious reflective questions about both schools and came to learn that though Georgetown was my dream school, I didn’t actually desire to go there. Not because it wasn’t a great school, because it was. Not because of money, because I knew I had routes to receive funding. But because upon further research of the schools curriculums, I saw that Georgetown wouldn’t fully get me to where I desire to be with my career. Coming to this realization was like a light bulb going off in my head. What made making this decision so hard to finalize on was because I loved the name “Georgetown,” like the Lord said. I wanted to be able to add that to my resume or bring that up in coffee chats that I’d have with colleagues. I mean who wouldn’t like to shout “Hoya Saxa!” every once in a while?
Anyways, I’ve come to learn that the name of an institution is nothing but a name. It doesn’t have the power to open doors for you like the Lord can. See Psalms 75:6-7: For exaltation comes neither from the east. Nor from the west nor from the south. But God is the Judge: He puts down one, And exalts another.
One prayer I have continually prayed over my life is that if the Lord is not with me in something, then I don’t want whatever that thing is. And the Lord had made it clear that though Georgetown is a great and amazing school, UMD would be my best choice for what I want to do and where He’s taking me.
April 15th came and I enrolled into UMD, School of Public Policy and I’ll be starting this August and I am so excited for this future graduate journey! Y’all know I will keep y’all apprised, so stay tuned for more blog posts!
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