DRIVEN TO SUCCEED
By Christine Neuberger
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“I enjoyed taking classes to the end.
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Carole Ellison knows a thing or two about career success. Once a computer
programmer, she advanced into systems engineering before becoming a
whiz at software sales. It’s no wonder people assumed she had
a college degree.
“I was promoted to a pay scale and position where you normally
had a degree,” Ellison said. “It would always bother me
that I couldn’t say I had a degree.”
That changed in 2002. Ellison, who had begun college years ago, earned
a bachelor’s degree from the University of Mary Washington’s
College of Graduate and
Professional Studies, formerly James Monroe Center.
That was just the beginning. In May, she graduated from CGPS’s
master of business administration (MBA) program.
Ellison, 52, earned two degrees in five years by hitting the books during
her long commute to a demanding job. As an adult who balanced part-time
studies with a thriving career, Ellison exemplifies a trend among graduates
and current students at CGPS.
Individuals already enjoying professional success flock each year to
the Stafford County campus to finish college degrees they started earlier.
Drawn by programs tailored for part-time students, working adults realize
long-held dreams by earning the Bachelor of Professional Studies (BPS)
degree. Like Ellison, many BPS graduates stay on to earn the MBA.
Ellison was fresh out of high school when she headed to college on a
scholarship. A year later, she put higher education on hold to follow
her husband Rich’s military career. She soon took a job to help
support their family, which had grown to three and later would increase
to four. In the computer field, she flourished, starting out as a programmer
and moving up to systems engineer.
Meanwhile, Ellison’s daughters earned their bachelor’s degrees
and went on to graduate school. Her husband returned to college to finish
his degree. One day at work, it hit her: “I need to go back.”
In 1999, Ellison was among the first to enroll at the new college campus,
just minutes from her Stafford home.
“Work is my first love,” she said recently. “So classes
had to be at night. But I didn’t want to sacrifice quality, and
I didn’t want to learn online; I wanted real professors in real
classrooms.”
Carrying 12 credits each semester while commuting to a job in Richmond,
Ellison felt drained by the time she finished her undergraduate degree
in 2001. Yet she had an appetite for more. “I loved it. I wasn’t
ready to stop.”
After enrolling in the MBA program, a job change lengthened Ellison’s
commute. She started a daily trek to and from Rockville, Md. But by
riding with a coworker, and by taking a laptop, batteries and charger,
she was able to study en route. As Ellison rehearsed class presentations
in her Honda, the colleague provided feedback from behind the wheel.
It helped that Ellison’s boss was among her biggest supporters. She allowed Ellison to schedule work trips around exams and class presentations. What’s more, Ellison’s employers financed virtually all of her education.
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By going back to school while successfully maintaining a career, Carole Ellison (center) represents a trend. |
Year in and year out, Ellison sacrificed Saturdays to study, earning
a 3.8 grade-point average in the MBA program.
During the week, work always took priority. Months of on-the-job effort
paid off when Ellison closed a $4.3 million sales contract – the
biggest in the history of her company, LEGATO Software, which later
was bought by EMC Corp. – during her final year in the MBA program.
The account, which Ellison still manages, is worth more than $11 million
today.
“Everybody [at CGPS] understands we are professionals with jobs.
They are realistic,” Ellison said. “I’ve never heard
anyone say school is more important than work. But along with that,
professors are not willing to accept substandard work.”
Ellison rattled off the degrees earned by her immediate family and realized
her MBA brought the total to seven. “Advancing your education
is a way of life,” she said.
Pamela Denton would agree. “I’ve gone to school all my life,
and this is the best education I’ve ever had [in terms of] the
quality of instructors and administration. People [at CGPS] care so
much about the students and the information we’re covering.”
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“If you want it bad enough, you do |
As an added bonus, she said, “you are exposed to adult students
with such diverse backgrounds, careers and life experiences. Sometimes
you learn as much or more from interacting with other students as you
do from the instructors and textbooks.”
For Denton, the situation was the same as that faced by Ellison and
many other CGPS students: Work and life got in the way of college. Denton,
47, owns and operates a printing-and-mail services company with $1 million
in annual revenues. As accomplished as she was, she knew something was
missing.
“I wanted a degree for a long time,” Denton said. That desire
became a reality when she earned her BPS in May. Now she is enrolled
in the MBA program at CGPS.
“It took me until I was in my mid-40s to get my degree, but it
means more to me than it might have if I’d graduated from college
at 21. I had to wait and work for it. I probably got more out of it
this way.”
As manager of the day-to-day operations at Data Integrators, a data
processing, laser printing and mailing business she and her husband
started six years ago, Denton is no stranger to pressure.
“Someone asked me how I relieve stress. I said, ‘I go to
school.’ I love it.”
To bring the same success to her education as she does to her job,
Denton devotes evenings and weekends to the books, sometimes burning
the midnight oil to finish class projects.
“If you want it bad enough, you do what you need to do,”
she said. “I’m no different than the other students here.
They want the education and are willing to give up sleep to get it.”
Denton already had an associate’s degree and a paralegal certificate.
But like Ellison, she felt incomplete not having a four-year college
degree. Now, with an undergraduate diploma in hand, her goal is to earn
her graduate degree and a 4.0 grade-point average in three years –
by the time she turns 50. Along the way, she is applying what she learns
in the classroom to her profession.
“It’s time well spent,” Denton said. “The professors
tie what we’re learning to the real world, and I’m able
to take that with me.”
Graduate school means sacrifices for Denton, as it did for Ellison.
But satisfaction balances that.
“I enjoyed taking classes to the end,” Ellison said. “I
honestly looked forward to walking into class every night.”
Christine Neuberger is news information and publications coordinator at the University’s College of Graduate and Professional Studies.