Editor’s Note

Deadra Miller, online editor

While I was growing up, I was more involved with my hands-on creativity than reading and making my own imaginative reality. I was not the smartest student in school. Being in five different school districts throughout my formative years of school was not helpful. I put my focus into my music and multiple instruments.

After realizing I did not want to be in the Presidents Own Band, I decided to take the path of communications and work with the VHF radios.

Eleven months after my first son was born, I got out of the Marines and came to Virginia.  It was not my plan to move here, but it is what I had to do now that I was a mother. So I worked with the Virginia Department of Corrections for eight years. After working there, coming to college was finally an option.

At 31 years old, I was not the typical college student; I was a full-time mother to two boys, working full time and taking classes in the evenings. After my first semester of night classes, I realized I could not work full time and continue my classes, so I started day time classes and eventually ended up taking ENG 121 and writing for The Forum.

Writing for The Forum and making the friendships that I have was not in my plans for my college career, but I actually love doing this. Now I am 33 and almost graduated with a General Studies Degree, and it is all because I finally stepped out of my comfort zone. I have come to acquire a taste of being more than a working mother that attends school.