In May 2025, I made my final walk across the stage for commencement at Michigan State University.

Now, a few months later, I officially completed my degree requirements and earned my Bachelor of Arts degree in Information Science, focusing on Media & Information, and minoring in both Entrepreneurship & Innovation and Leadership in Integrated Studies (the Bailey Scholars Program).

Even now, writing those words feels surreal.

Not because earning a degree is unusual, but because of everything it took for me to get here.

This wasn't a straight-line journey.

It wasn't four years of classes followed by graduation and a neatly packaged success story.

It was a journey filled with starts and stops, unexpected detours, responsibilities, challenges, growth, exhaustion, lessons learned, and more than a few moments when finishing felt impossibly far away.

And yet, here I am.

A college graduate.

Learning How to Be a Student Again

Returning to Michigan State wasn't just about completing classes. It was also about learning how to be a student again.

When I came back, I was older than most of my classmates. Walking into classrooms filled with freshmen and sophomores felt intimidating at first, and I spent the first couple of weeks trying to stay quiet and blend into the background.

I didn't want attention.
I didn't want to stand out.
I just wanted to finish.

After years spent building a career, running businesses, volunteering, and navigating adult life, it felt strange being back in a classroom again. I wasn't returning as the same person who left.

I had more life experience.

More perspective.

And a lot more at stake.

When Staying Invisible Stopped Working

That changed after a group project during my first semester back.

I found myself frustrated with the situation and the level of engagement from some of my groupmates. Even though I was frustrated, I knew deep down that it wasn't really their fault. They were freshmen and sophomores. They had time.

I felt like I didn't.

I needed every class and every grade to count.

And I needed to perform at a level that would give me a realistic chance of meeting my graduation requirements.

At one point, my professor pulled me aside and told me something I've thought about often since then.

She told me that as a leader, I couldn't fade into the background no matter how hard I tried.

If I cared about the outcome, I had to step up and lead.

She was right.

So I did. And I took that with me through every other class I had to finish.

Rediscovering What I Was Capable Of

That first semester back, I took four classes and finished with a 4.0 GPA.

For the first time, graduation didn't just feel possible.

It felt real.

What surprised me most wasn't the grades themselves.

It was what those grades represented.

For years, my college academic story had been defined by what I hadn't accomplished. The unfinished degree. The classes I struggled with. The expectations I hadn't met.

Now, I was proving to myself that I was capable of succeeding in ways I hadn't before.

My overall university GPA still wasn't high enough for Dean's List recognition, but seeing what I was capable of academically after all those years gave me a level of confidence I hadn't felt in a long time.

Not because I suddenly became smarter.

But because I stopped viewing my past struggles as evidence of what I couldn't do.

The Final Stretch

When summer semester arrived, I ended up taking five accelerated classes instead of the schedule I had originally hoped for.

It wasn't easy.

The semester was split into two sessions. The workload was intense. And while two classes wrapped up midway through the summer, three more remained before I could officially finish my program.

By August, I was tired.

Not just from juggling summer classes, work, and life challenges, but from carrying this goal for so many years.

When the final grades were posted on August 26, 2025, I opened them with a mix of excitement and anxiety.

Four 4.0s.

One 3.5.

No Dean's List.

But in that moment, none of that really mattered.

Ironically, I finished college with the strongest academic performance of my entire college career.

The thing I had been working toward for years was finally complete.

And for the first time in a very long time, there was nothing left to prove.

Celebrating the Win

For so long, graduation existed in the future. Now it's something I can finally look back on and say: I did it.

Not perfectly.
Not quickly.
But I did it.

That piece of paper matters. I'm proud of it. But what I'm most proud of is the persistence behind it.

I'm proud that I came back.
I'm proud that I kept going.
I'm proud that I finished something that would have been easy to leave unfinished.

This degree represents my resilience and grind as much as my education. It represents choosing to continue, even when progress was slower than expected. It represents believing that a delayed dream is still worth pursuing. And maybe most importantly, it represents refusing to let one difficult season define the rest of my story.

And that's worth celebrating.

What's Next

Obviously, as a new graduate, finding the right opportunity is next on my list.

But before I jump into applications, interviews, and the next phase of my career, I'm giving myself permission to take a short break and fully appreciate this accomplishment.

For so long, finishing my degree was the goal.

Now it's reality.

That chapter is complete.

And after everything it took to get here, that's something I'll always be proud of.

After taking it all in, I genuinely believe earning my degree will unlock the next chapter of my life.

I hope the combination of my experience, portfolio, entrepreneurial background, and education will create new opportunities, stability, and momentum.

I don't know exactly what the future holds.

What I do know is that I'm walking into it with more experience, more confidence, and proof that some goals are still worth pursuing, even when they take longer than expected.

And honestly?

That feels like a pretty good place to start.