First Generation Stories

All Things Are Possible

Carol Servino
Ph.D Student, School of Public Affairs
Graduate Assistant and Instructor
carol.servino@unlv.edu

Stan Mills of Sun City, AZ, and me when I visited him in 2007 to show him a copy of my diploma from NJIT.

I moved to Nevada a year ago and was thrilled to be near UNLV, where I was able to find work in my field of technical communication.

Formal Education and Life-long learning
My father quit high school to join the Navy during World War II, and upon his return to the United States he earned his GED and instilled in his four children a desire for formal education and life-long learning.

I was the first of my siblings to attend college and graduated from Glassboro State College (later renamed Rowan University) in N.J. with a B.A. in journalism in the mid 1970s — the Watergate era. I worked as a newspaper journalist; I was married, raised children and moved a few times, finding work in a variety of fields that always required writing. Having a college degree gave me options for employment, diverse and interesting friends, and an appreciation for continuing education. But I always wished I had gone on for my master’s degree earlier, especially because we moved to areas without four-year schools.

Inspired and Motivated
By then, we’d been living in Oregon, 90 miles from the nearest university. Both of our sons were college graduates, and I was deciding what to do next when I met a man — Stanley Mills, a veteran of World War II — who told me he regretted he did not complete the requirements for his master’s degree. He needed only three more credits when he ran out of money and had to leave St. Louis University in the 1950s.

I wrote a letter to SLU, and asked if there was anything they could do to help him. They allowed Stan to write his thesis, using his notes from 51 years ago, to complete his Master of Arts in Philosophy in May 2005 at the age of 83.

I attended his graduation and was inspired and motivated. I decided I did not want to have a similar regret. I went back to school (online and then became a graduate assistant), and earned my Master of Science in Professional and Technical Communication in January 2007 from the New Jersey Institute of Technology.

All Things Are Possible
I know from experience, all things are possible. That’s what education is all about: new possibilities, options and choices, every day. Stan and I have become friends. At 86, he’s still auditing classes whenever and wherever he can. I visited him last month and he introduced me to some of his friends who had heard all about our journeys to complete our degree requirements.

What excites me about being part of a university is that age does not matter. Young people, old people, and people in between are here because they wish to learn more. We’re all at different stages of our growth and development; the important thing is that we pay attention to opportunities that education allows. I remember my father’s words that were meant to inspire: “Education is something no one can take away from you.”