About ME

One of the advantages to being a returning student is having the life experience to know exactly what you want to do. Before completing my degree, I had already held many different kinds of jobs in a variety of different industries. I’ve been a manager, a bookkeeper, and a salesman. I’ve worked in the auto industry, the tourism industry and small business retail. I’ve even owned and managed my own business. In 2011, I married my high school sweetheart and a year later, we welcomed our first child into our family. Five years after that, we were blessed with a second baby. Finances necessitated the closing of my business after my second child, and I became a stay-at-home mom full-time. As much as I love my children, it was clear that being only a parent was not my calling. I took some time and really dove deep to figure out exactly what I wanted to do. Going back to school was a terrifying yet exciting idea. I was worried my familial commitments would prevent me from achieving what I felt I could. Much to my surprise, I thrived once returning to ODU and have since raised my GPA from a 2.34 to a 3.39 (as of this writing, that is not including my final semester). While my children are often a handful, I attribute my success to them. I wanted to show them that anyone can achieve anything if they set their minds to it. It is due to this mindset I adopted that I currently have a 3.94 GPA in my Psychology courses and a 4.0 GPA in Criminal Justice.

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The business I owned for several years was a used bookstore. My little shop, Finch Books, lived at the Oceanfront and every morning I smelled the fresh sea air mixed with the smell of old books. The store was named after the main character in the book that sparked my love of reading, To Kill a Mockingbird. While the store didn’t last, my love of reading never faltered. Like Mockingbird, I loved books that dealt with the law, morals and ethics, crime, injustice, and the human condition. While running the bookstore, I fell in love with the True Crime genre and read every book I had on the subject. To this day I still have a growing collection of crime books by my bedside. Since closing the store, I’ve even started research for my own true crime book based on infamous crimes throughout the Hampton Roads area and Virginia in general. When enrolling in ODU, I added Criminal Justice to my Psychology major because of this true crime obsession of mine. Then in May 2020, during an unprecedented global pandemic, George Floyd was killed. Like most Americans, I was disgusted, horrified, and furious. I knew of the police brutality problem in this country, but I always assumed it was a “bad apples” problem. The full quote most people misremember is “a few bad apples ruin the bunch”. It was clear after George Floyd’s death and the ensuing protests and police violence displayed on the TV every night that “the bunch” was indeed ruined. My dreams of simply getting a degree and making a simple living while writing on the side was turned on its head.

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My original goal returning to school was a simple one. Raise my GPA, get a degree, get a reliable job, make some decent money, enjoy time with my family. The goals are still the same in essence but after witnessing the events of 2020, I felt as if I had to do something more important, more fulfilling, and more needed. My goals now are to work in law enforcement or government to attempt to change the system for the better, even if it is in only a minuscule change. I am currently working off the “mom” weight and getting fit to one day become a police officer and possibly later a detective. Even though the police are viewed by society as violent, overreactive, racist, sexist, nationalist, and dangerous, I think it’s important to show the human element. I’m a student, a wife, a mother, a member of the LGBT community, a supporter of BLM and the Me Too movement…and I also want to be a cop.

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