I Graduated. Here's What It Actually Took.
She’s a uni grad, ya’ll!
I finished my B.S. in Computer Science with a 3.9 GPA. I want to sit with that sentence for a second, because for a long time it didn't feel like something I'd get to write.
I started the program online in 2024 and finished in 2026. My school was fully online, so there was no lecture hall, no campus, no "classes" in the traditional sense, just coursework I had to carve time out for wherever I could find it. And in that time, I moved through five different jobs, one after another: Whole Foods, Best Buy, a med spa, Spectrum, and now RXO. Each one came with its own hours, its own demands, its own version of what "full time" meant. Coursework happened in the early mornings before shifts, in the thirty minutes I had between tasks, in the evenings when I was already tired, no matter which job I was in at the time. There was no semester where I got to just be a student. Every semester was "student, plus whatever job I had at the time."
I want to be honest about something else, too. I had a good support system, and I didn't have rent to worry about. That mattered more than I can really put into words, and I don't take it for granted. But I still had bills, and I still had to work, and "not paying rent" doesn't mean "not exhausted" or "not stretched thin." The support I had made this possible. It didn't make it easy.
My family showed up for me the entire way. My parents especially have been my biggest cheerleaders since day one, the kind of support that doesn't waver no matter how many times you vent about being tired. And there's someone else who deserves a mention here too: my mother-in-law, who has stayed one of the steadiest, most important people in my corner this whole time. Family doesn't always look the way you'd expect it to on paper, and I'm grateful for the parts of mine that stuck around and kept showing up. My friends carried their share of this too, showing up for me in ways I can't fully list here. If you're reading this, you know who you are.
I also got a head start I don't talk about enough. Before any of this, I did a stretch at community college, and true to form(Hello adult ADHD diagnosis!), I couldn't settle on a major to save my life. Criminology, then biotechnology with a focus in forensics, then psychology, before I ever landed anywhere near computer science. Those credits ended up transferring over and cutting real time off my degree. I also got the actual campus experience out of it back then, walking to class, sitting in a lecture hall, all of it. It was nice. But if I'm being honest, I'm glad I didn't have to do that again this time around. Fully online, on my own schedule, fit around whatever job I had that month, was exactly what I needed the second time.
If there's one thing I want to name specifically, it's this: out of every job on that list, Whole Foods and RXO are the two that kept me sane. Not because the work was easier there, but because of the people. No managers or supervisors I've had have supported me the way the people at those two places did. That kind of thing doesn't show up on a transcript, but it's part of how I got here.
I also can't leave out Professional Assist Corp. Not just for the people there, but because they gave me the confidence to even start this in the first place. I don't know if I would have believed I could do this without that. Alison, if you ever see this, thank you.
I'm not saying any of this to complain. I'm saying it because I think people should be honest about what these degrees actually cost, especially when you're doing it the nontraditional way. I didn't go the traditional four-year, campus route. I built this degree around jobs that kept changing and bills that didn't stop, with a support system underneath me the whole time. If you're doing the same thing right now, mid-way through, exhausted, wondering if the tradeoff is worth it: I don't have a tidy answer for you. I just have "I finished it, and it was hard, and I'm glad I didn't quit."
The GPA is not the part I'm proudest of, honestly. I'm proudest of the fact that I kept showing up on the weeks I didn't want to. There's a version of this story where I dropped out somewhere in year two because the schedule stopped making sense on paper. That version was available to me more than once. I didn't take it.
What's next
I'm not rushing into anything. Right now I'm letting myself actually rest, which is a strange thing to have to give myself permission for, but I do.
When I pick back up, here's where I'm headed:
Backend development is my primary focus. I want to build systems that hold up under real use, not tutorial projects. That means going deeper into the parts that are easy to skip when you're self-taught: testing, system design, the boring infrastructure decisions that end up mattering the most.
Cybersecurity is the second track. I'm working through CompTIA Security+ on my own, and I start CodePath's CYB102 course in September. I'm not doing security as an afterthought to backend work. I want both, and I think they make each other stronger. Understanding how systems fail is part of understanding how to build them well.
I'll be building in public more, sharing projects as they're actually ready instead of dumping finished code with no history behind it. If you're following along for that, more is coming.
For now, this is just the marker. I did the thing I said I'd do. On to the next one.
