Editor’s Note: This is the fifth and final profile in a series that featured graduates who attended the 2024 Winter Grad Walk.
Shortly after giving birth to her daughter in 2020, Tyshania Campbell found out that doctors did not expect her infant, Jacqueline, to survive to her first birthday. Campbell was determined to fight for her daughter’s life and, at the same time, pursue a master’s degree at University of Maryland Global Campus (UMGC).
“It gave me something productive to do, to feel like I'm pushing the needle forward while at the same time feeling confused and scared for [Jacqueline],” Campbell said of her now 4-year-old daughter. “But I wanted better for her, and I wanted better for myself.”
Earlier this month, Campbell crossed the stage at UMGC’s 2024 Grad Walk to receive a diploma acknowledging her academic credentials: a Master of Science in IT with an information assurance concentration.
While studying for her master’s degree, Campbell generally juggled two classes a semester, worked a full-time job and cared for her daughter. There was a stretch where she needed to take a few semesters off, but she followed that with three classes in back-to-back semesters to graduate in December 2024.
Campbell currently works in IT and compliance at Promise, which provides agencies with tools that streamline operations and improve efficiency. After graduating from Towson University in 2016 with her bachelor’s degree, she worked on the help desk at the ACLU of Maryland, a before being promoted to system administrator and, eventually, cyber security analyst at the business-lending company Kapitus.
“I would definitely say my favorite part of attending UMGC has been the flexibility that it offered me, like the ability to wake up really early in the morning and get assignments done” Campbell said. “Being able to do things on my own terms and in my own time has definitely been super helpful.”
Campbell said that despite attending all online classes at UMGC, she connected with many professors and students. When a class assignment required her to pair up with a partner, Campbell sent an email to her classmates to join a Google group and help partner everyone. This encounter enabled her to make new friends with whom she stayed in touch throughout her master’s program.
“We were able to actually collaborate, not just on the group project but on several different projects for different classes, which was really cool,” Campbell said. “So, I feel like I made friends.”
Campbell said her professors and UMGC’s flexibility allowed her to study while also juggling the responsibilities of parenting a special needs child and navigating work.
“I would say my biggest inspiration to finishing would be my daughter,” Campbell said. “She's my world and she's my life. Sometimes I tell people, “Jacqueline is my boss. I work for her”.
Jacqueline was born with thoracic insufficiency syndrome, an umbrella term for a series of congenital abnormalities that require her to use her belly to breathe due to hypoplastic ribs and to be on high-flow oxygen. She has a feeding tube as well.
With Campbell’s dedication to her daughter and Jacqueline’s excellent palliative and hospice teams at Capital Caring Kids, the child has been stable and healthy the last two years with no hospitalizations.
Since Jacqueline is immunocompromised, Campbell tries not take her outside the home. Unfortunately, Jacqueline could not take part in Grad Walk on Dec. 14, but Campbell’s mother, father, sister and brother, were by her side.
Campbell said her experience provides lessons for other students.
“Be persistent, finish what you start and don't give up,” she said. “The cool thing about UMGC is that if you need to take a break, you can. But, you know, don't lose sight of the goal—and finish what you start.”
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