By Narra Georges 
“You can do it. It just takes some planning, some struggles, and some sacrifices, but you can do it.”
“What made you want to go back to college?”
“I decided to go back to college after having my youngest daughter. I originally had an associate’s degree in accounting and was working in a CPA firm for eleven years. However, the hours involved during tax seasons and having two small children was just way too much. I had always wanted to be a teacher, but it was also something that when I first went to school was discouraged because of the salary potential and the limited availability of jobs. It just so happened to work out where if I went back to school, I could be home with the kids more. I was working 80 hours a week for four months out of the year and that wasn’t a good time with small children. So everything just kind of fell together. I was able to come back to school and do what I had originally wanted to do when I was five years old.”
“What’s your biggest struggle being a mom and a college student?”
“There are a lot of those! I guess the biggest struggle being a mom and a college student is really just balancing the time. You’re in classes all day. You have homework at night. You also have to help your children with their homework and my children range in age; they’re 19, 9, and 5. So of course they have varying degrees of necessities and things I have to deal with. Just really trying to find that balance and maintain the standards that I expect out of my school work while not forcing them to sacrifice anything from their mother has really been the biggest challenge. It’s one of the most difficult things. I think we’ve managed to do it. Some nights I’m up doing homework from 10 P.M. and ends around 1 A.M., but all in all it works. I think the only reason it works is because of home support. In addition to the kids, I’m technically a “mom” to a grandfather-in-law. So yeah, balancing his appointments into that and maintaining all that is difficult, but manageable. You can do it. It just takes some planning, some struggles, and some sacrifices, but you can do it.”
“Has life gone the way you planned?”
“Definitely not where I thought I’d be, I mean I have a 19 year old. So I was a young mom. I had her when I was 20. I struggled financially and hadn’t gone to school so she triggered me to go back to school to try to get a good job. Found that good job, was working that good job, but the hours and the demands of it were too much. My husband and I struggled to have a baby. When I had my second daughter, it was difficult having those hours with a small child plus a 10 year old. Life was still where you would want it to be. Then having the new baby, obviously with the money I was making and the cost of daycare stuff is what caused me to decide to leave work, which threw back more struggles. It again caused life to be something we didn’t plan. Did I plan to be this age in college and have three kids? Not really. I had hoped to be making a lot of money and be doing well. Although it hasn’t gone how I planned, it’s gone to point that I enjoy. It’s come full circle. I’ve gone from always wanting to become a teacher to finally going back to school and doing what I wanted. I have three beautiful children, married, and everything’s good. Once I get out of school and start working, financially everything will be good. So it’s really not how I planned to get there, but in the end, I guess it kind of did go how I planned because I’m finally where I originally wanted to be. It just took a long roundabout way to get here.”