Determined

Last night I ran into a neighbor who mentioned that her husband is taking Calculus II this summer, and only that one class because calculus is hard, you know. I said, I know, I took it in summer school too, and only that one class so I could focus on just that. Because it was hard.

Which reminded me of a student who completely amazed me one summer. She worked for Dell and Dell was paying her tuition, but only if she got her degree within a certain time frame - I think that's how it went, why she was doing this. Anyway, she was going to St. Ed's working on a bachelor's in business and needed to graduate at the end of the summer.

Now if you haven't done summer school in college, this is the deal. You take a class that usually lasts four and a half months and cram it into 6 weeks. Full time students generally take five or six classes during the Fall or Spring semester, but you're not allowed to take more than two at a time in summer school. There's two six week sessions, so you can do four classes in a summer. I did it several times and I liked the intensity of it. For one summer, eat, sleep, go to class, study, and that's all.  I could do it because I had no job, no kids, all I had to do was school.

Anyway, this student needed eight classes to finish her degree. So she was taking 4 classes - two at St. Ed's, two at ACC - during the first six week session. And then 4 more - two at St. Ed's, two at ACC - during the second six week session. Oh, and there's no break between the two sessions. This summer, for example, the first session ends Friday July 6 and the second session begins Monday July 9.

She was a divorced single mom with three kids.

And a full time job at Dell.

She packed a suitcase for each of the three kids and delivered them to her ex-husband. "They're yours for the summer. I have to finish school. Love you, kids! I'll visit when I can."

There was still the full-time job.

She passed all her courses, got her degree that summer. She made a B in my class. I could tell from her work that she was usually an A student, but I thought a B was damn good, considering. [published on 5/21/12]