Debra Stevens recently earned a Doctor of Business Administration degree from Wilmington University. Thirty years earlier, she dropped out of high school.
Today, she teaches in the GED program at Cecil College, helping others to earn their high school diplomas and hopefully go on to college.
I believe education is the most important thing. If you have an education, you learn to see that things are not always what they seem to be on the surface. You are aware that you don’t know everything, she says.
Stevens’s academic journey was profiled in the Cecil Whig and the Patch news website in Perryville, Maryland, where she resides. After obtaining her GED, she earned a bachelor’s degree at Goldey-Beacom College.
Ten years later, she earned an MBA from WilmU, where she advanced her education while working and caring for family members. Ten years after that, she returned to WilmU, where she received her DBA.
“It was perseverance that helped me always to find my way back and pick up where I left off,” says Stevens in her Patch interview. “It almost doesn’t seem real when I look at the journey I’ve had, with all the classes, homework, late-night studying, guidelines, exams, and balancing acts.”