Online Graduate Alumni Meet In Person as New Hires
It Is Not, In Fact, A Particularly Small World.
The United States occupies 3.8 million square miles and is home to an estimated 327 million people, so the fact that two 2018 graduates of Creighton University’s online Master of Science in Health and Wellness Coaching program (now called Integrative Health and Wellness) met each other in Atlanta at a new employee training session constituted a significant bucking of the odds.
Lind-sae Wilkes, 32, earned her online degree while living in Kansas City, Missouri. Phylicia Fauntleroy, also 32, earned hers while living in Hinesville, Georgia. After studying a thousand miles apart, the two students — Creighton degrees freshly in hand — happened to be sitting next to each other late this past summer at the Atlanta YMCA, both newly hired as health coaches and both undergoing mandatory training.
“There were about 10 of us at the session, and in the beginning, we just had a meet and greet,” says Wilkes. “We’re going around the table, and everybody’s introducing themselves, kind of giving our academic backgrounds. It came to me, so I introduced myself and said I had graduated from Creighton’s coaching and wellness program. And the girl sitting next to me goes, ‘So did I!’”
“When I heard, it was like, ‘Oh, wow!’” says Fauntleroy, who was sitting next to Wilkes. “Her name was familiar from the many (online) discussions that we had together, but I wasn’t sure.”
Wilkes, who holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology, had just moved to Atlanta after her husband was reassigned there for his job, while Fauntleroy commuted several days a week from her home in Phoenix City, Alabama.
The increasingly long arm of Creighton University was an unlikely unifier. Fauntleroy says she had never heard of Creighton before research persuaded her that its online master’s degree was the key to enhancing her bachelor’s degree in health and wellness management. Wilkes, who, along with her husband, is a fan of NCAA basketball, knew of Creighton through its basketball team, and says the reassurance that she was enrolling in a Division I NCAA school meant a lot.
“Education is not inexpensive by any means,” Wilkes says. “When you’re making that decision, especially as working adults — and at the time we had one small child and were expecting our second child — it was a decision we weren’t making lightly.
“I think it helped build confidence, from my husband’s standpoint, that this is a really good school, a reputable school.”
Meeting Fauntleroy at the training session, in addition to being “uncanny,” was reassuring.
“As a recent graduate of the program, it was really encouraging seeing somebody else who is on the same career path and putting the same degree to use,” she says. “It was affirming that this had been a good move for us, and has clearly served as a good move for everybody else who’s been involved in the program as well.”