Perseverance

Class of 2009: Dalnews profiles some of the 2,700 graduates who'll walk across the stage of the Rebecca Cohn Auditorium during Spring Convocation, May 19 to 27.

Nicole Adams

Going back to school after a decade is not an easy decision. Doing it as a newly-single mother of two young children would be unthinkable to many, but not Nicole Adams.

“I need benchmarks,” says Ms. Adams, who is completing the College of Continuing Education’s Transition Year Program. “I need to know what the next benchmark is and when I hit it, I make a new one. My goal was always to move to the next best opportunity.”

After years of job hopping, and with the support of her family, Ms. Adams is redirecting her life towards the goal she’s had since she was 12 years old: to become a doctor.

Getting used to being a student again wasn’t as hard as she expected: “When you’re a single mom and used to running a household, the workload doesn’t take all that much adjustment,” she laughs. “The biggest change was opening my mind to critical thinking, learning to challenge and discuss what I was being presented with.”

Her next benchmark is a Bachelor of Science degree in molecular biology and biochemistry with neuroscience as a second major. Her interest in medicine is personal: she hopes to study neurofibromatosis, a genetic disease that runs in her family.

“I believe that the best way to give back to society is to give something that means everything to people: their health, their well-being, their life,” she says. “Contributing to biological and medical science is the best way for me to do that.”