Featured Student Proves Power of Education
Sugar Grove – Waubonsee Community College’s tagline is “Where Futures Take Shape.” This statement rings true for many students, including this month’s Featured Student, Felicity Barr, of Oswego. It was at Waubonsee that Barr found her voice and hope for a brighter future.
While education has been a priority in Barr’s life recently, it wasn’t always that way. Growing up in South Africa, she wasn’t expected to excel academically — only to marry well and raise a family. And so Barr went to high school only through the tenth grade and then eventually went on to start a family.
But when it came time for her two daughters to go to school, Barr and her husband knew they wanted more for this next generation and so set about moving to a different country with a better educational system.
Barr and her family arrived in the Chicago area in February 1998 and were greeted by a harsh Midwestern winter.
“We knew we would need jackets so we brought what we considered our winter jackets, which of course didn’t cut it,” Barr said.
Eventually, they got used to American life, including the weather, but Barr was figuratively left out in the cold several years later when she and her husband divorced, and she was left to raise her daughters on her own.
“I had no work, no schooling, no anything,” Barr said.
What she did have were friends who told her about Waubonsee and the college’s GED program.
“When I first enrolled to get my GED, that was all I was interested in,” Barr said. “I thought that way I could a job at a supermarket or something, but once I completed the GED, I wanted to do more.”
Before she could want to do more, Barr had to start believing she could do more, and she found this confidence in the GED program. She credits her instructors for always being encouraging and supportive, like they were when she was set to take the GED’s required constitution test.
Barr had only been studying for a few days and wasn’t sure she was quite ready, but her instructor knew differently. “She said ‘I believe in you, go take the test,’” Barr recalls. “I did and I passed it the first time. It was very important to have somebody else believing in me.”
This newfound confidence helped Barr with her next challenge, addressing a large crowd as Waubonsee’s chosen GED student speaker.
“It was a shock, but it felt good,” Barr said. “I finally got something I had earned on my own.”
Empowered by her success in the GED program, Barr enrolled in credit courses at Waubonsee, where she continued to receive support and encouragement.
Barr was interested in computers and thought she wanted to go into networking or systems analysis and design — until she took her first Web class with Assistant Professor of Information Systems Amy Chaaban.
“She told me I had a real knack for [Web design],” Barr said. “I was picking it up quickly, and she encouraged me to look into it as a career. It’s fun. There’s an end result that’s out there.”
Now, Barr is set to earn her Associate in Applied Science degree in Web authoring and design in December 2008 and has already done some professional Web design work, including a redesign and monthly updates for a company called Catalyst Recruitment Partners.
Barr knows there is always something new to learn in her chosen field, but she’s up for the challenge.
“I feel that I’m capable of learning anything,” she said. “If you go through Waubonsee, you’ll feel the same way.”
That attitude is a lesson to everyone, but especially Barr’s daughters Kaylee and Roxanne, ages 14 and 12. Barr says simply, “They’re proud of their mum.”
Featured Student
The Featured Student Program is administered by the Office of the President. Several times a year Waubonsee Community College students are recognized for their academic excellence, service to the college and their community and leadership contributions.
To suggest a Featured Student for potential recognition please email tleatherbury@waubonsee.edu. |
