Jennifer May

I am an adult returning to finish my Bachelor's Degree in Business Management.

I graduated high school in 1991 and immediately enrolled at Mesa Community College. I was "directionless" at the time and my family was going through some difficulties. I worked part time and went to school full time, but out of need, my work soon eclipsed my learning. It wasn't long until I was working full time and stopped going to school.

In 1997, I realized I wasn't going to advance unless I went back to school. I enrolled and was accepted to University of Phoenix - which back then was an on-campus/compressed schedule format. I enjoyed the majority of my classes and was able to apply my learning immediately.

By 1999, I had become disenfranchised after a string of bad instructors (including one my entire study group filed a formal complaint against). I was also extremely uncomfortable with the amount of debt I was taking on. I was also dealing with the loss of my father and some financial issues as well. The bottom line was, I wasn't ready and I was still - even at 27 years old - too immature.

For the next twenty years, I focused on my career. Fast forward to 2018, I landed a job at The Boeing Company. In speaking with my mentor, she advised me that - while she was confident in my abilities and we both knew I would succeed in the role I was interested in, the hard truth was that the department I wanted to work for simply didn't hire people without a degree. That was all the motivation I needed - along with Boeing's extremely generous tuition program!

I re-enrolled at University of Phoenix, with my paltry 2.7 GPA and set out to graduate and improve my GPA along the way. So far, I've managed to increase it to 2.86 and am confident I will surpass the 3.0 mark very soon, which will be enough to get me into my Masters program at Washington State University next fall.