��������

Instead, Craig focused on raising her child and making ends meet by teaching at a preschool day care. Before she knew it, 10 years had passed and Craig began to reevaluate her situation. Her job offered free child care, and the schedule worked well for life’s flow with young kids, but she knew that wasn’t what she wanted to do forever. 

She started investigating online degree programs and landed on for its online flexibility, but she wasn’t fully committed. Fortunately, Craig had an enrollment representative at UOPX who helped her understand her options. The representative walked her through the journey. 

Craig’s sister-in-law, meanwhile, led by example. She had also chosen �������� and was six months into her program. “Watching her do it, I was like, ‘I can do this too!’�� says Craig. 

She signed up to earn an associate degree and kept going toward the bachelor’s, ultimately choosing a degree in communication for its versatility.

It wasn’t easy, though. “There were so many things I didn’t know how to do,�� she says. “Like when it came to writing a paper, I could barely type.”��

As she reentered the world of school, Craig continued to work full time in child care. She was also raising four young children: Her husband at that time had a son who lived with them. “To be honest it was a lot of late nights. It was a lot of staying up after they went to bed,�� says Craig. 

While Craig worked around her children’s schedules, her children served as motivation to keep going. “I wanted more for my children and not to live paycheck to paycheck like I was at that time,�� Craig says.

Craig was motivated, but she wasn’t a martyr. She believed in taking breaks. That meant completing her program in five years, but it also meant maintaining her sanity. “When I started feeling the burnout, I would take the break,�� she says. Even when she had just one class to go, she honored what she needed, took that last three-week hiatus and came back to complete the course and finish her degree.  

Ironically, Craig wasn’t interested in a break after the bachelor’s. She dived right into the master’s program, but then quickly realized the timing wasn’t right. Her children, who’d supported her during the bachelor’s degree, needed more focused attention. So, Craig stepped away from the master’s and focused on using the degree she had to the betterment of her family. 

Craig was ready for a new career path outside of child care. Through the recommendation of a friend, she applied for a sales representative role at a beer distributor and got the job. “It was exactly what I needed,�� she says. “It was kind of entry-level admin work along with the inside sales.”��

Craig soaked up new skills and, after five years, moved on to a similar role with a wine and liquor distributor. It was a fun industry, but when she went through a divorce and became a single mother, her job wasn’t paying the bills. 

Craig set her sights on a marketing coordinator role. It was a stretch, but she threw herself into learning everything she could about the company and her role.  

When her company went through an acquisition, they inherited a cloud-based software tool designed to help companies manage their customer relationships. Craig was tasked with learning how to integrate and implement that and then other systems. She loved it. Her boss encouraged Craig to keep learning as much as she could. He saw that she was gaining the qualifications that would see her move from coordinator to marketing operations manager. 

Craig gained an industry certification for the tool and soon changed career paths to back-end marketing, which included tasks like marketing and sales automation and software implementation and integration. As she headed in this new trajectory, Craig had another surprise: She and her second husband found out they were expecting a child. Then, when Craig was 12 weeks pregnant, they received the news that the baby would be born with Down syndrome. 

Scared by the diagnosis, Craig confesses that she broke down crying with her oldest son. “I said, ‘I don’t want him to be picked on in high school,’�� Craig recounts.

Her oldest son had a different viewpoint: “He said, ‘Mom, people don’t pick on the kids with Down syndrome or special needs anymore.’�� According to him, Craig says, students protect such children from the bullies. 

Bolstered by her family support, Craig began to look outward as well. She got involved with GiGi’s Playhouse, which connected her to the Down syndrome community. Slowly and with some trepidation, she attended her first event at Gigi’s Playhouse. 

“It was amazing,�� she recalls. “They are just amazing people.”��

As Craig felt strengthened about her son’s diagnosis, she was affected by another blow: companywide layoffs. Fortunately, she soon landed a new role as marketing operations manager at a health services software company, where she distinguished herself enough to be transferred to the business systems team.

As the business systems architect, Craig builds out the framework and tools leveraged during the marketing and sales teams. Her new manager, Craig says, recognized her potential and suggested she go for the master’s degree she’d given up on earlier in life.

“‘You have the know-how to do this,’�� Craig recalls her boss saying. “‘[And] you need that piece of paper.’��

That conversation prompted Craig to reach out to �������� again, where she learned about the competency-based (CB) program. The idea behind competency-based education is to leverage a student’s work experience in a degree program. Ideal for students who work well independently, the program lets students demonstrate their mastery of skills as they learn them. If they already have a skill set covered in the degree program and can demonstrate mastery, they can move on to the next segment. In this way, students can complete a degree relatively quickly by focusing on learning what they don’t already know.  

Despite the merits of a CB degree program, Craig was wary. She was working full time, serving on the board for her chapter of GiGi’s Playhouse and raising a special-needs preschooler. “Would I have the time to keep up with that program?�� she wondered.

As with the bachelor’s program, Craig’s enrollment advisor offered options. “She assured me if this one didn’t work for me, I could always switch back to the other one,�� Craig says.  

Craig acknowledges that the investment of time was substantial. “It was a lot of work, and [it meant] missing out on some of the things that I would have normally done on the weekends,�� she says. “But it was for only a year, so I just kind of pushed through and did it.��

Craig’s greatest challenge was staying on top of the classes, since the competency-based program didn’t have set due dates. And this time, she wasn’t taking breaks.

“It’s very easy to get behind,�� she explains. “There was one block of classes [where] I was scrambling. So, the next block I worked a lot ahead. That way, if anything came up, I was able to stay on track.��

For Craig, it was worth it. “You know, years ago when I left the day care industry and went to work in the beer industry, if somebody said I would be doing this kind of work today [as a business systems architect], I would’ve probably laughed,�� she says. “I never thought I would enjoy doing something like I do now.��

But surprises have defined Craig’s life, from the arrival of her children to her career trajectory. At this point, she seems to have embraced the unexpected. 

“You know, with a new grandson and this guy [her son], I’m going to take some time and just enjoy that,�� she says. “He’s amazing. I don’t know how to describe the little light in him.”��

Another master’s degree, more career growth �� all this may yet come to Craig. But for now, she’s content to enjoy what hard work and life in general have brought her: much for which to be grateful.

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