"Adult Learning 
Alive and Well at APU"

A Graduation Speech by

There’s something about feeling like I took a really messy route with my education. It took me 3 schools and 9 years to get a 4 year degree. I feel like I should have figured out my career path in high school;  I should have gone directly into college and plugged straight through until I completed my degree 4 years later; and I should have entered straight into the field of my choice, where of course, I would have lived happily ever after. That’s how it’s supposed to work, right?

Instead, I attended 3 schools for vastly different degree programs (theatre, then Information Technology, and finally Organizational Management), took many breaks here and there, and then stumbled across the Degree Completion Program at Alaska Pacific University. Later, I moved into APU’s Rural Alaska Native Adult Distance Education Program, where I’m proud to say, I’ve finally completed my degree!

For over 5 years now (while I’ve been going to school), I’ve been fortunate to work for a tribal nonprofit in Anchorage. In this position, I assist university students from across the state. The term “traditional” student hardly applies to the majority of the population I serve. Many of them are parents in their 20’s all the way up to their 50’s, juggling school and work and family. I can relate to their stories. I talk to them about postsecondary opportunities, urging them to continue their education, no matter what the circumstances. I tell them how Benjamin Franklin said, “An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.”

I am reminded of The Tiny Warrior by D.J. Eagle Bear Vanas. In this book, a grown man named Justin is talking with his grandpa, lamenting over all of his past missteps. Justin tells his grandpa how he fell into the wrong crowd and made their misguided priorities his own. He’s beating himself up for not attending college when he had the chance, thinking of the employment opportunities that had been waiting for him back then. His grandpa asks him gently, “Well why don’t you go back to school?” Justin laughs and says, “Grandpa, do you know how old I would be by the time I finally finished school?” His grandpa replies, “You’d be exactly the same age you would be if you didn’t go.”

The book itself is simple, but the message is clear. You can’t control time, but you can control what you do with it. One of my favorite quotes is from Henry David Thoreau: “I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestioned ability of a man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.”

It may have taken 3 schools and 9 years to get my degree. It may have cost me stress while juggling work and school and being a mom. But when I stop to think where I would be if I hadn’t taken that first step 9 years ago, and every step since then, to stand here before you today… I can’t help but feel like I took exactly the path I was intended to, all along.

Thank you everyone, God bless, and congratulations to the graduates and all who supported them.