Sometimes walking away gives a fresh perspective….

[photo source: pkgregory.com]

Its been 17 days since I walked out of beauty school for the last time. The last time as a student anyhow, I didn’t enjoy the last phase of my experience. I don’t miss it. I’m glad it’s over. I lost the energy and the interest to continuously blog about something that had become more of an annoyance than a passion. I’m still passionate about the industry but not so much about the primary educational journey itself.

As I suspected, things took a turn for the worse following Miss Tanna’s departure. The school’s passive director even had to intervene at one point due to the number of unhappy students that filled the seats in my class. The frustration was mainly fueled by Miss Trish’s lack of leadership ability combined with her outdated knowledge and overall obvious lackadaisical attitude. The fact that I was paying 12k for this experience grew more infuriating with each passing day where nothing new was really learned or taught. I was not the only one counting down the days though I probably took it most serious as I was intent on getting outta there asap.

Our graduation ceremony was rather nice, considering. Only six of us (from my class) attended but it was a nice event. Family & friends were left with a good impression of the school. The location was a large formal venue complete with caps & gowns, and a well done slide-show capturing fun moments from all three campuses set to TI’s “Live Your Life” feat Rihanna. There were guest speakers and all the students heard their names called as we proudly crossed the stage. It was nice to see Miss Tanna there as well. We quickly realized the issues we experience at our school might be isolated as we watched students from the other campuses joyously hug their instructors as they passed by while our campus remained oblivious to our instructors presence.

The day following all that pomp & circumstance, we had our Practical for Evening Makeup. Miss Trish’s process for conducting practicals is nails-on-the-chalkboard irritating. She likes to interrupt anyone she feels is doing something wrong in an attempt to complain & correct but the point of test taking is to see what you know & score afterward, no? This was a constant source of debate with Miss Trish.  Again, counting down the days.

We had two Practicals under Miss Trish’s supervision: Evening Makeup & Electricity Facial.

To say the Electricity Facial was a task that took prayer is an understatement. Miss Trish was uncomfortable with the procedure so she resorted to her usual process of assuming we knew the steps when a question was asked during her demo which turned out to be a disaster. She doesn’t believe in truly preparing for anything but rather just going off of memory which clearly goes back some decades & consists of invalid information. There were several questions asked, such as “aren’t we supposed to avoid using products containing alcohol while performing Galvanic?”, this question really sent her over the edge possibly because it was piggy-backed by several others that led to Miss Trish announcing she felt like crying, accompanied by a shudder of disbelief and Mean Girl annoyance sighs heard throughout the spa.  I had my arms folded so tight against my chest I thought I might fall backwards by accident. I could feel the girls looking over at me as if I would offer my two cents but I opted not to. Tension, confusion, exasperation and irritation is not a good mix as these emotions tend to look upon logic in a disapproving manner so I kept my mouth shut. I just knew I’d be following my notes closely for this Practical and quickly forgetting everything shown during the disappointing demo.

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