Editor’s Note: This is the eighth in a series of profiles of Spring 2024 graduates.
Shortly after the death of her husband due to cancer, India King-Hamilton remembers sitting in the living room wondering how she was going to support two children with just a high school diploma.
“That’s when I made a conscious decision to go back to school,” she said.
King-Hamilton has more than 20 years of office management experience, working her way up through the ranks of the nonprofit and financial industries, as well as local government. But she believed she had hit a ceiling.
“I knew the degree was the thing that was going to help me as far as salary,” she said. Fast forward four years and King-Hamilton is a proud member of the Class of 2024 at University of Maryland Global Campus (UMGC). “Now I'm walking out the door with a Bachelor of Science in Human Resources Management and 20-plus years of experience, and I'm looking toward obtaining a management position in human resources,” she said.
After completing her associate's degree in 2021, she contacted advisors at UMGC who provided her with the encouragement and resources to pursue a four-year degree. “They informed me about the Completion Scholarship, which helped a lot,” she said. “I was motivated even more to go ahead and finish it out.”
King-Hamilton said it was clear that UMGC is committed to its students’ achievement.
“The UMGC community was dedicated to my success, from working with my success coach—who called me at the beginning of every semester, in the middle of semester and at the end of semester to make sure I was OK—to working with financial aid when I had questions on whether or not I was going to get a grant,” she said.
For King-Hamilton, the biggest hurdles to achieving her degree were overcoming a fear of asking questions and gaining an understanding of all the resources available.
“A lot of times people are afraid that the instructor is going to judge them,” she said. “At UMGC it was easy to have conversations with instructors when I didn't understand an assignment.
King-Hamilton advises others interested in advancing their education at UMGC to take advantage of everything the university has to offer, especially the writing center and the library.
“Sit down and have a conversation with one of the admissions counselors,” she said. “If you're nervous and you're not sure because you’ve never been to college or it’s been so long since you’ve been to college, they will give you all the information you need.”
King-Hamilton now has plans to use her bachelor’s degree to carry her to something bigger. Much bigger.
She wants to go global.
“In the next five years, if not sooner, I want to be able to do human resources abroad,” she said. “I want to work for a company where I can set up or oversee their human resources division in Japan, England or Canada.”
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