Student Stories

Jessica McDonald began pursuing her bachelor’s degree after high school graduation in 2006, intending to one day teach middle school math. During her senior year, however, she “lost interest,” and she and her husband relocated to Augusta, Georgia, when the Army stationed him at Fort Gordon. Jessica got a job with their church, and because...

 

Originally from the Bay Area, Andrea Arnold is a first-generation college student who earned her bachelor’s from St. Mary’s College of California. Unsure what she wanted to do at that time, she pursued business because of its broad application to many careers. “I was the first in my family to go to college, and that...

 

Rachel Frost and David Hicks met at a statewide conference in Texas while they were each working as communication directors at separate school districts. Soon enough, they had fallen in love and were married. A young couple with two bright careers ahead of them, they decided to take the best next step – earning master’s...

 

San Diego native Sharla Serrano was once told by a high school counselor that she wasn’t smart enough for college. Now in her 50s, Sharla is pursuing her bachelor’s in General Studies 100% online and will graduate in May 2020. “My counselor had told me I could just be a housewife,” Sharla said. “That made...

 

Originally from Fairhope, Alabama, David Harding left after high school and earned his bachelor’s degree from a top accounting program at Grace College in Indiana. After graduation, he returned to the South to work as a financial analyst for an agricultural company in Gulf Shores. While working, David set his sights on a master’s degree...

 

Christy Hires is a mother of five in Colorado, a teacher, a certified aromatherapist, and now a graduate of The University of Alabama’s Master of Public Health (MPH) program, which she earned 100% online. When she finished her bachelor’s, she thought she’d never go back to school, but now, decades later, she has earned a...

 

Manar Abdelbaky was a student at California State University, Northridge and working part-time jobs at amusement parks. That sounds like the typical beginning of a college student’s story. However, by the time she graduated with her Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from The University of Alabama, her story and life were anything but typical....

 

Ever since Breland Almadova was a little boy growing up in Hawaii, his passion has been baseball. His performance in high school earned him a baseball scholarship at University of Hawaii in 2009. After playing at the collegiate level for the Hawaiian Warriors through his junior year, he decided to delay his education to pursue...

 

Florida native Tatiana Gandolff attended Jacksonville State University in Jacksonville, Alabama, after high school. But Tatiana quickly determined traditional learning wasn’t for her and returned to Florida to earn her bachelor’s online while she began a career in early childhood education. “I loved learning but I hated being in school,” she said. “I don’t feel...

 

During her senior year at Mountain Brook High School in the Birmingham area, Virginia Winn had toured 15 colleges, and she still couldn’t decide where she wanted to go. None of them had exactly the right fit for her where she could envision her future taking shape. She decided to complete a gap year internship...