Wondering if UMF is right for you?
With the support and guidance of the our dedicated advisors and faculty, many students have gone on to achieve their professional and personal goals. If you have some college credits, want to complete your bachelor’s degree, and want more out of your career, you’ll fit right in here. But don’t take our word for it, these students’ stories can give you a sense of what you can accomplish.
Full Circle
As her senior year was about to begin, Courtney Snow started running the Mt. Abram alpine racing program in 2012 while simultaneously taking on a more active teaching role at a preschool/childcare she had been working at. The combination of the two was a dream situation for Snowe.
“So I decided I didn’t need this college thing because I clearly had it all figured out.”
For the next six years Snowe ran the ski program and taught early childhood education. She met her future husband, and they started a family just before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. After having their first child, Snowe switched careers to a more steady, reliable office job at a local private school. She was good at the work, but “I knew that, longterm, the office setting wasn’t my happy place. Then COVD hit.”
She started teaching her children at their home during the pandemic, and upon reflection, Snowe knew it was what she wanted to be doing for the rest of her life. She reached out to a number of schools looking for the quickest route to her teaching degree, but it was ultimately an advisor for UMF’s Degree Completion Program who hooked her.
“She was amazing. It was clear that she was there to help support me. She understood my story. Out of all the schools, I felt like she and the school appreciated that I wasn’t the kid who was 19 years old anymore.”
Snowe is an all-or-nothing type of person. When she sets a goal, she doesn’t stop until she’s achieved it. So she was blunt with the schools she was looking at. “I didn’t want to go through a drawn out application process. I didn’t have a stellar GPA when I dropped out, but that was me five years ago, that was me before kids, that was me before life experience. And when I talked to UMF I really felt like…okay, we can leave all the ‘teenager figuring life out drama’ where it belongs and get the job done. And I liked that. It’s why I chose UMF.”
Snowe graduated less than a year later with a bachelors in Liberal Studies and a concentration in elementary education. She was offered her full time dream job before she had even flipped her tassel.
“Everybody who goes through this as an adult is doing it for different reasons. I had the opportunity to go live it and fall on my face, but it’s been great to go back, full circle, and have all that perspective that I wouldn’t have had otherwise. It’s made me a better teacher.”
Better When You’re Ready
Some people just aren’t made for college.
Or that’s what Larissa Martin used to believe anyway.
After several rounds of signing up for classes and dropping out, Larissa figured she wasn’t cut out for college. “I basically wrote that dream off completely. I thought that’s just not gonna be for me…”
At that time, Larissa’s only goal in life was to put food on the table and keep a roof over her and her kids’ heads. When you’re sleeping in the back of your car, it can be tough to keep a hold of your dreams.
Larissa had lost her job after a traumatizing car accident. Soon after, she was evicted from her apartment. And although those months were dark for Larissa, she kept her head up, kept her kids in school, and shifted her goal to a fresh start: Maine.
Once in Maine, Larissa enrolled in classes at Central Maine Community College, graduating two years later with an associates degree in education.
“I just thought ok, well, I thought I could get my associates degree and I did, and then I found out that I was really, really good at it. I got really good grades and I really enjoyed it. So then I just kept setting my sights further and further.”
Larissa enrolled with UMF’s Degree Completion Program in the fall of 2022 and graduated two semesters later with a bachelors in liberal studies and a concentration in history.
“I started realizing that I could get a doctorate in history or poly sci, and that something like that was totally feasible for me. I didn’t want to box myself in anymore.”
Not only did Larissa climb out of homelessness while raising two children, move across the country for a fresh start, and sign up for full time classes, she did it all while holding down a full time job. Now her 19-year-old is starting to look into college.
“I kind of feel like society forces us to have a particular story and that maybe that’s not the story that everybody has to have. Sometimes you just have to wait until it’s the right time. I shouldn’t have let fear stop me, but at the same time, I wasn’t ready yet. It wasn’t important to me. And now it’s important. It’s priority number one. I think I was just finally ready.”
It is Never too Late to Finish
Vanessa was only a student teaching semester away from graduating UMF with a bachelors in education in 2000. She was smart. She was hard working. She had dedicated four years to being a student and a college-level athlete.
“Looking back, it’s like…how could I just completely walk away? But, that was just where I was at. I wasn’t in a good place, so I figured I would take a little bit of time. And very quickly that became me getting married and having four kids.”
Even though Vanessa loved being a stay at home mom, she couldn’t stop thinking about that narrowly missed opportunity at Farmington.
She wasn’t the first in her family to give space to those questions. Both her father and her grandfather went back to school to complete their degrees- her father went from being a long haul trucker to being a minister after 10 years of schooling, and her grandfather dove into medical school despite being in his fifties.
“It definitely had an influence on me. He showed me that you can go back and do things, it doesn’t matter how old you are. And I certainly wondered about it. I’m in my mid-forties, so I wondered if I was too old to be completely starting over with a career path. But I have a whole lot of life ahead of me.”
Starting again was the hardest part. Vanessa wasn’t sure where classes would fit into her family’s busy days, or where her newly discovered passions would fit into her old transcripts. Teaching was no longer appealing to Vanessa. After helping three of her four boys through speech therapy, she felt herself pulled to the field.
“I knew that to be a speech pathologist required a masters degree, and I didn’t even have my bachelors. It just felt like…how am I gonna do all that?”
But she called anyway, and after talking with an advisor in the program, she discovered she only needed two classes to get a BA in general studies so she could go on to graduate school.
From Flunking Out to Thriving
It had been 20 years since Charity Webster stepped foot in a college classroom. The first time around, in the late 90s, she went on a full scholarship designed to help young people work and study at the same time. After getting an associates in bio science, Charity went on with the goal of becoming a forensic scientist, but quickly decided that major was not for her. In addition, she was dealing a difficulty time for her family. “There was tons of stuff going on…I just couldn’t handle it.” Right around that same time, Charity got a good job and decided to quit school.
At 33, Charity and her husband Shawn found themselves navigating the muddy waters of infertility. Doctors chalked it up to stress, so finally, Charity decided to quit her job. She picked up hours at a local childcare center and quickly fell in love with the work.
“That’s when I learned that I was in the wrong job. My passion had always been children, so why was I trying to do all these other things? Why hadn’t anyone told me to go be a teacher?”
Soon after, Charity got pregnant, and discovered her other calling in life- to be a mother.
“I got a phone call from the state one day, the director of the daycare had told them I might be interested in taking two foster children into my home. I had just had a baby, and everything I thought I knew about mothering was wrong. But they were right. I did take them.”
Then they found out there was another sibling. Within a matter of five years, Charity and Shawn went from thinking they might not ever have children, to having five. Charity became a full-time mom, and part-time homeschool teacher.
Eventually, as her oldest, Zack, was getting ready to start middle school, Charity got offered a long term substitute teaching position for the middle school music class.
“The economy had changed, everything was more expensive, and we wanted to do more and more with our kids. We were always going somewhere, doing something, the kids were involved with a lot of things.” So it made sense for Charity to start working again.
“The first month was crazy. But by Christmas break, I knew I loved it. I had this epiphany. I loved being in a school, being a part of that community of educators, and being a part of our greater community. I loved seeing over 500 kids a week. I loved spreading positive energy.”
She decided she was going to go back to school to get certified. She was 40 years old.
“I was ashamed to turn in my transcript to UMF, because that wasn’t me. To flunk out and not withdraw? That isn’t me. I’m not that kind of a person. How was I going to tell UMF that?”
But she did it, and that spring of 2020, Charity was accepted into UMF’s Bachelor in Liberal Arts program. She was working full time, maintaining stability for her family of seven, and taking 10-12 credits per semester. The restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic were a blessing in disguise for Charity because they allowed her to take classes at home or during downtime at work. Her school district even helped pay for one class each semester. She took classes all summer, and even picked up some credits by doing classes at UMA. Charity graduated Summa Cum Laude, with a 3.98 grade point average, down two points only because of her grades the first time around.
“I was overwhelmed with emotion at graduation. I had held it together, the whole time. And I had shown my kids that no matter what, no matter where you are, no matter what part of your life you’re in, stop if you’re not doing what you love. Just because something is hard, doesn’t mean you can’t do it and do it well.”