Adult Student Single Mom Says Getting College Degree is Definitely "Do-Able"
Caldwell resident Dana Cordasco has a lot to be excited about these days. She graduated May 18 Magna Cum Laude from Caldwell College with a double major B.A. in Chemistry and Mathematics. And she is getting herself and her two sons packed and ready to go to Oxford, Ohio so that she can be ready for orientation and placement exams at Miami University of Ohio by August. She has been awarded a graduate assistantship at Miami University and is very excited about the new adventure. "I'll be teaching three sections of freshmen in the chemistry lab and I'll have 75 students."
Cordasco knows that going to college as an adult and a Mom is not easy, but she said it is "definitely do-able. You have to treat it like a job." And that's what she has done. "That's why I have a 3.78." In between the boys' football, baseball, karate and T-Ball, and their homework, somehow she managed to fit in her own studies. "My boys are good. They would even say, 'Good luck on your test Mom,'" Cordasco said.
Cordasco, who graduated with departmental honors in Chemistry, said the Caldwell College faculty has always helped her make it work. "If I had something to do with the kids, they were supportive." The Chemistry faculty at Caldwell is "outstanding and the class size is perfect." She said her advisor Roxanne Knott-Kuczborski, in the Center for Graduate and Continuing Studies, "was the best advisor ever."
"I chose Caldwell College because I did not want to be a number in a lecture hall at a large university. The quality of the education I received at Caldwell was positively impacted by the small class sizes and personal attention from professors," Cordasco said. "It hasn't been easy because there are so many more demands because I have kids," but, she wants other single mothers to know that college can work out and work out really well. "There are support systems. Don't give up on your dreams!"