BY NATASHA ZENG Unlike most HU students, Jannea Thomason -- a ’15 graduate -- is a mother of four-year old when she received her diploma.
“Balancing family and study is not hard,” Thomason said. “Balancing family and study and friends and other college activities-- that would be hard.” Four years ago, when Thomason was deciding for college, she heard HU from a family friend. She paid a visit and it felt right for her. “When my family entered the picture, it was an even better fit,” Thomason said. However, fitting in a new community is not always easy. As an English major, her workload was reading and paper writing, which involves planning and time management. As a mother, her job was to make sure her kid -- Benjamin Ray Thomason safe, which requires make him wear shin guards, a mouth guard, and a seat belt. “My priorities were my education and my family, that did not give me time to be involved like the typical college student,” Thomason recalled. “Establishing myself as an adult was probably my biggest challenge. It was hard to be a college student and an adult, when the two seem to co-inside less and less.” To Thomason, being a mother at HU changed the way how she perceives education. It also gives her a “unique literary criticism,” as she described, because she can now connect with authors in a different manner. “Education, college, is not something I am entitled to,” Thomason said. “It was something I earned, worked for, and planned to use. I am no longer just responsible for myself. I am responsible for Benjamin; I am accountable for how I take care of him.” Up to this day, Thomason still remembered how she took care of her kid while finishing up her homework. “When Benjamin was an infant he slept more and I did homework when he slept,” Thomason said. “As he got older he slept less- no naps- so I had to stay up later and later at night to do homework. That was my choice not to do homework while he was awake.” After graduating from HU, Thomason received a full-time graduate assistantship at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. “Next step is earning my Master's, doctorate, and then teaching at the college level,” Thomason said. “I have always wanted to be a teacher, but I wanted to still include the research and publishing which puts me teaching at the collegiate level.”
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