The Road Less Traveled

Pursuing higher education and whether to take on student loan debt are big decisions. Here’s one story about taking the long road, grappling with failure, and why it was worth it

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My journey in higher education has taken me from community college dropout to assistant professor, making headlines after I paid off what would now amount to more than $200,000 in student debt after questioning whether academics would even factor into my path in life. Reflecting on what began almost 20 years ago, it’s hard for me to embrace how challenging the beginning of my journey was and how rewarding the process has become. As an 18-year-old high school graduate, I was unclear on where life would take me. I was accepted into a few four-year colleges, but I chose to stay local, full of confidence I would breeze through the classes at Tompkins Cortland Community College and be well on my way to millionaire status by the time I was 30 years old.

It wouldn’t be as easy as I had assumed. As a business administration major, I failed Accounting 101 twice. My first two years were filled with struggle. After my second year—despite some progress—I decided to drop out and take time away from college to figure out if academics was truly my path in life. I quit my retail job in upstate New York and drove across the country to live with my father in Utah. Spending six months working in a call center, I knew it was time to go back to finish the journey I had started two years ago. I drove back across the country to re-enroll at the local community college. With my grandparents funding the spring semester, I knew there was no option but to prove I was capable of academic success. After failing the first two years, I was able to fix my mistakes in less than a year and finished strong, taking 15 credits one semester, summer courses, and an 18-credit semester.

Stepping Into Labor Relations

Newly armed with confidence from my success, I decided to tackle a dream. I always wanted to open my own business, and—learning from people who had been extremely successful—I continued to pursue higher education. An internship was required to graduate with my business degree at Elmira College, and Kennedy Valve Manufacturing—a local foundry at which my grandfather spent his entire career as an electrician—offered me such an opportunity. It was my first experience in human relations (HR), and sitting in grievance and arbitration meetings as an intern, I knew labor relations was the field for me. The meetings consisted of employee terminations, disciplines, drug testing, and an investigation into employee theft. After the year-long internship I continued to work in HR. I spent time turning around an organization that had lost $20 million in one year and had the worst workers’ compensation rating worldwide out of 90,000 employers.