I became a non traditional student!

Hi, my name is Carina. In 2021 I decided to go back to school and finish getting my bachelor's degree. I am 27 years old with 2 kids. I am doing a Part-time internship and volunteering at both my son's schools. I decided the time would never be right to go to school so why not now?

Let me start with my early journey back in 2014. After I graduated high school in 2014, I did an accelerated program to get my associate degree. I graduated with my associate degree with a mathematics designation in August of 2015. YAY! I thought. I applied to many universities including Colorado State University, Metro State University, School of Mines and University of Colorado in Denver and Colorado Springs. I had an interesting experience going to Colorado State University. I decided that experience was not for me. But that is a story for another day.

I ended up getting pregnant! so I took a break from school and had a beautiful son in 2016.

I decided to apply to the University of Colorado in Denver again and got accepted. I took a break again and decided to start school in 2017. I decided to pursue a bachelor's in mathematics and did a part time semester while I was working full time. Lets just say that financially, I was not able to continue so I stopped.

I worked in Retail and moved onto a job in estimating for a subcontractor. I worked with a subcontractor for 3 years and loved it. Then COVID hit, of course like everyone else it affected my life.

During COVID I had my second son in 2020, got laid off, then worked from home. I worked from home and took care of my son for a little over a year. When I was asked to return to the office in 2021, I gave it a shot, but the commute and childcare cost was just not worth it. So, I quit. I decided to take a break and stay home with my son. On the side I was working as an uber driver and starting my reselling business. I was a Stay at home by day and uber driver by night. I soon realized that being a stay-at-home mom was NOT for me. and that is okay. That also is another story for another day.

I decided I wanted to go back to estimating but I wanted to work for a general contractor on more complex commercial jobs. So, I applied to the University of Colorado in Denver and got accepted. I waited a few months and decided to start school in the Fall of 2022 for a bachelors in construction engineering and management. I jumped right in as a full-time student. I put my youngest son in full time daycare and my oldest was in school during the day. For the Fall of 2022 and Spring of 2023, I was able to focus on being a full-time student and mom without worrying about work. (We had enough rainy-day funds for us to do this).

I did a full-time summer internship this past May and I am currently still there. This year (Fall 2023) I am no longer able to no worry about our finances, So I decided to continue getting experience in the industry. Now I am in the full swing of things and in the middle of a busy life. I am taking a full-time school load, working 20 hours at my internship and being a mom to my two boys. Not to mention I am also a Room Parent, a part of the PTO Yearbook Committee and still have my reselling business running. I am busy to say the least, but I can finally say I AM DOING IT! and you can too, or maybe you are already doing it! Anything is possible if you set out for it.