Graduate School Got Better With Age

Last weekend, my husband Eric Feid and I drove to Waco, Texas, to move our daughter out of her college dorm room. Then I slipped into her bathroom, put on a cap and gown, crossed a stage, hugged my mom and sister who drove in for the occasion, and we all headed home.?

A few hours later, we pulled into our driveway with two glorious carloads of freshman year to unload. Plus, one newly-minted master’s degree. To say it was a special Mother’s Day weekend would be an understatement. As a proud member of Baylor University ’s Class of 2023, I am living proof that it’s never too late to finish what you start.

But it almost didn’t happen.?

I had been one thesis away from earning a master’s degree for too long. Decades, in fact. The only thing I had mastered in that time was the art of procrastination. Like others, I began graduate school in my early 20s to pad my resume, raise my future job prospects, and ultimately advance my career. Instead, my life advanced, my career advanced and my master’s degree moved to the backburner. Seemingly forever.?

I got married, enjoyed a career in PR, co-founded my own agency, and had a child. Life took over and college became a distant memory. Then when my daughter enrolled as a Baylor freshman, I re-enrolled as a Baylor graduate student too. Talk about a last-minute decision.

Fast-forward to the ’22-‘23 school year and life had drastically changed. The most obvious difference was that I officially had less “mom duties.” We went from seeing our daughter every day to texting her for proof-of-life signs.?

Secondly, the growth and success of BizCom Associates , the PR agency I co-founded, included great people in client relations, media relations and digital divisions doing award-winning work. The company’s achievements had nothing to do with micromanaging and everything to do with empowering an incredible team.?

Lastly, I was at a point in my career where I actually knew what I wanted to research. My thesis -- “At the Crossroads of the American Dream and Mass Media in a Global Pandemic as Seen Through the Lens of Small Business in Franchising” -- would include meaningful data to benefit the PR agency and the industry we serve with incredible input from some of the biggest franchise leaders in the United States. [I’ll share more about that in the coming weeks and months.]?

Today, I look back on my younger self and wonder. Who did I even know when I started grad school? What kind of research did I think I could accomplish back then? Maybe my career happened for a thesis topic to happen with decades of professional experience to support it in just that order. And here we are.?

I didn’t need a master’s degree to advance my career. But the career I’ve been blessed with certainly helped me finish my master’s degree. None of that needs to matter to others as much as it matters to me. But one thing, I hope, will matter to everyone when looking at the road ahead.?

The biggest lesson in all of this is that goals in life don’t have an expiration date. Life does. So live yours to the fullest and never stop pursuing your dreams. Whatever they may be.?