{"id":117599,"date":"2019-12-18T09:08:35","date_gmt":"2019-12-18T16:08:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/?p=117599"},"modified":"2020-08-27T11:24:16","modified_gmt":"2020-08-27T17:24:16","slug":"commencement-profile-wendy-howe-graduates-summa-cum-laude-with-a-degree-10-years-in-the-making","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/?p=117599","title":{"rendered":"Commencement Feature: Wendy Howe graduates summa cum laude \u2013 with a degree 10 years in the making"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Wendy Howe is finishing the journey she started 10 years ago: earning her bachelor’s degree. Photo credit: Anna Squires<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Wendy Howe is a mom, an Army veteran and a career\nprofessional at T. Rowe Price. And at 45, she\u2019s adding another accomplishment\nto her list: college graduate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Howe began pursuing her Bachelor\u2019s of Business Administration at UCCS in 2009, when she was 35 years old. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She was rising up the ranks at T. Rowe Price, where she worked in retirement planning \u2013 yet she didn\u2019t feel successful. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“There was always a sense of inadequacy that I had around the thought of, \u2018I don\u2019t have a degree,'” she said. “I just didn\u2019t feel like I was enough. And school was my \u2018enough\u2019. Because education is a leveling field. Education is everything you need to get somewhere else.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“And I was curious,” she added. “I wanted to see if I could do it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Howe grew up in small-town Pennsylvania before joining the Army at 17. Six years later, she had orders to deploy to Somalia, a husband on the way to Korea and an 18-month-old son \u2013 with no childcare. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI realized I had to get out of the Army, because I didn\u2019t know how we were going to make that work,\u201d Howe said. \u201cYou can\u2019t ask your parents to raise your son for you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“If you want to do something and finish something, you’re going to find a way to do it, no matter what,” Howe said. “You’ll have barriers and obstacles, but you’ll find a way.” Photo credit: Anna Squires<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Having left the military, Howe spent the next two years commuting nearly 150 miles a day from Fort Hood in Texas to work as a broker in Austin. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though she didn’t have a degree, \u201cThe person who hired me took a chance on me,\u201d she said, \u201cbecause he was a veteran as well.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a chance that paid off \u2013 Howe has worked in the investing industry ever since. And she has spent 10 of those years earning her degree, two classes at a time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Discipline has been Howe\u2019s driving force for the last decade. Her day starts at 5 a.m., when she goes for a morning run. She\u2019s in the office by 7. She works through lunch, comes home to do homework, and then \u2013 only then \u2013 juggles the rest of life\u2019s demands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPeople ask me, \u2018Can\u2019t you just\u2026\u2019<\/em> I tell them no!” Howe said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“There\u2019s no \u2018just\u2019. I don\u2019t have a lot of time, and I\u2019m going to spend it doing the best that I can. I\u2019m never going to turn something in that\u2019s \u2018just\u2019 good enough. I\u2019m going to turn in something that I\u2019m proud of.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her discipline has taken her far. Graduating summa cum laude, Howe is at the top of her class. But she couldn\u2019t have done it without flexibility from her employer, T. Rowe Price, and from UCCS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen I started here, students were in the classroom,\u201d she\nsaid. \u201cThere was no getting around that. There were very few options for night\nclasses and there were virtually no classes hosted online. Bit by bit, I\nstarted to see it change, and now I\u2019ve been able to take more hybrid classes,\nwhere some days you can work from home.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI did have to take some classes during the day, over the years,\u201d she continued. \u201cI had some great managers who supported me. Without T. Rowe doing that for me, I don\u2019t know if I could have done it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That flexibility was critical for Howe, and she credits both her classes in business administration and her electives in the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences with teaching her relevant skills that she will continue to leverage in her career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve learned how to learn,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s what everything comes back to. Every time I was struggling with school \u2013 every time I\u2019ve thought, \u2018It\u2019s been nine years and I\u2019m still doing this?\u2019 \u2013 I said to myself, ‘You know what? I\u2019ve learned how to learn.'”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Howe is both nervous and excited to be done with school. “It’s like I’m getting rid of a part-time job,” she said. “I’m going to need to find another hobby!” Photo credit: Anna Squires<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

“If you want me to do something, I can figure out how to do it,” she continued. “I can figure out how to learn it, how to deliver it in the right shape and form, how to work with other people. And that is so applicable to life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But for all her professional success, the journey to earn\nher degree has been purely personal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m not going to get a promotion out of this,\u201d Howe said. \u201cIt\u2019s\nnot going to necessarily lead to any other jobs. This is all for me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf someone had told me to do it, my heart wouldn\u2019t have been in it and I wouldn\u2019t have wanted it as much,\u201d she continued. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut I wanted it. If you want it badly enough, you don\u2019t give up. You don\u2019t just try.<\/em> If you try, you do. If you fail, you get back up and you try again. And if you put enough work into something, you\u2019re going to succeed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Howe will walk across the Broadmoor World Arena stage this\nFriday to accept her diploma \u2013 just one semester before her son will graduate\nfrom Colorado State University with a degree in health sciences. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She plans to continue running, enjoying family life and growing her 16-year career at T. Rowe Price. And without classes, homework and group projects to fill up her evenings, she\u2019s looking forward to \u2013 maybe \u2013 just a little more free time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Howe will be one of more than 550 graduates participating in the 2019 fall commencement ceremony Dec. 20 at Broadmoor World Arena. A record-setting number of more than 1,000 students will be conferred degrees for the summer and fall terms during the 2 p.m. ceremony.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wendy Howe is finishing a journey she started at 35. And the College of Business graduate is at the top of her class. (More)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":117606,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1,46,49],"tags":[53,107,40,42],"class_list":["post-117599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all","category-business","category-campus-announcements","tag-academic-affairs","tag-alumni-relations","tag-college-of-business","tag-commencement"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Wendy-1.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1mBpJ-uAL","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=117599"}],"version-history":[{"count":29,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117599\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":126170,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117599\/revisions\/126170"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/117606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=117599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=117599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=117599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}