Raising Strong Girls While Becoming One
When Jen Hankins left college after her junior year, she assumed she would return someday.
Life had other plans.
Marriage, motherhood, and raising three daughters quickly became the center of her world. She loved being a stay-at-home mother and poured herself into reading with her children, teaching them, and creating the childhood she wanted them to have. Finishing college slowly faded into the background.
Then everything changed.
Her marriage became increasingly controlling and abusive. After one violent incident in which her oldest daughter witnessed her being strangled, Jen made one of the hardest decisions of her life. With the encouragement of a therapist, she chose to leave the marriage and begin again as a single mother.
Looking back, she says the two best decisions she ever made were becoming a stay-at-home mother—and later divorcing her children's father.
Determined to build a stable future, Jen reentered the workforce, eventually beginning what became a twenty-year legal career. She worked her way from administrative assistant to legal assistant, then judicial assistant, and ultimately became a Corporate Paralegal. Along the way, she earned promotions, built professional credibility, and became the person colleagues relied upon.
But one thought never completely disappeared.
She still wanted to finish college.
Working alongside attorneys and mentoring law clerks reminded her of the dream she had postponed years earlier. Yet life always seemed too busy, and there was always another reason to wait.
Everything shifted after she remarried.
One day, after hearing Jen talk once again about finishing school, her husband simply asked,
"You keep talking about finishing, so when are you going to?"
That single question changed the trajectory of her life.
In 2023, Jen enrolled at the University of Louisville. Returning to the classroom after nearly three decades required her to relearn academic writing, research, technology, and how to think of herself as a student again. Even as an accomplished professional, she battled moments of self-doubt.
Then came the first A.
Soon another followed.
Before long, Jen had earned a 4.0 GPA, made the Dean's List twice, and graduated with the Outstanding Organizational Leadership and Learning Student Award. She has since begun pursuing her master's degree.
But perhaps the greatest impact wasn't on her résumé.
It was on the people who had been watching her all along.
Her daughters saw their mother refuse to let fear define her future. One pursued her artistic dreams. Another advanced in military service. Together, they became living examples of the grit Jen had spent years trying to teach them.
"The biggest lesson I learned is that it is never too late to pursue your goals."
Today, Jen believes every chapter of life offers another opportunity to grow. Her journey reminds us that the strongest lessons we teach our children are often the ones they watch us live.
Jen Hankins is one of fifty adult learners featured in Beyond the Degree: Stories of Adult Learner Comebacks and What They Teach Us. Read her complete story in her own words, and discover what these remarkable comebacks teach us, in the book from the Center for Academic Innovation.