Isn't student-teacher and oxymoron?

  Cori Bolan is a full time student at Anoka Ramsey Community College, and after two years spent mostly on the Cambridge Campus, she will be transferring to St.Cloud State University to pursue her B.A. In education.

   Bolan is a non-traditional student, having started attending college at 27 years old, and after marrying and having two young children, with another that was to be born in the final weeks of her first semester of school. She graduated high school from Spring Lake Park Senior High, and moved on to attend beauty school immediately after graduation. After getting a cosmetology license, she became a hair stylist, working in that profession for nine years and still maintains her license today.

   She worked for a high level chain salon for a number of years before leaving to be her own boss at a salon that allowed her to rent her own chair and set her own prices. The move was challenging, but the salon business is a challenging one to begin with. She loved being a stylist, and valued the relationships she had built with her clients, some of which had been customers of hers since she started in the field. But she always felt that she wasn't living up to her potential. She felt she had more to offer the world than haircuts and expert color jobs.

   She felt that she needed a degree from a university.

   Now, the real challenge began. Bolan was married and had two small children, with another on the way. Her and her husband made the decision to move to Cambridge to live with her parents so they could both pursue degrees simultaneously and get as much schooling out of the way as possible. She had been out of school for almost ten years, so she was apprehensive about her return. Like many non-traditional students, the first few weeks of school can be hectic. But she fell in step with her peers and has been recognized as an exceptional student. She is a member and officer of Phi Theta Kappa, the international two year college honors society, she's on the dean's list, and she will be graduating with honors from Anoka Ramsey after this semester.

   The most difficult thing for her was not getting the grades, even though she has maintained a grade point average above 3.9. For Bolan, the hardest part of school to date has been deciding what she was actually going to school for. She knew she needed a degree in something to pursue a career that was more challenging and rewarding than that of a stylist, but a degree in what she had no idea. She at one time had planned to get a degree in psychology, and was inspired to do so by a psychology class she took her first semester. But the prospects for that seemed dim, and the job market was not extremely active in the field. Not only would it have meant at least eight years of school, but the schooling might have never ended. She didn't want to be in school until her oldest child was in high school, that she knew.

   Then, she had an experience that changed her path and finally gave her some direction. Between the fall 2010 and spring 2011 semesters she decided to be a teachers aide at Cambridge Elementary school for a week. She did it because she had considered education, but many of the schools required previous experience in the classroom before accepting new applicants into the program. She hadn't decided on education for sure, but at least she wanted to have the option if she did decide to go that route.

She spent a week in a third grade class and was immediately hooked. She loved the classroom, and really enjoyed spending time with the students. It was this group of children that helped her decide her future. She has plans to graduate and become a teacher, but her ultimate goal is to be a principal or school administrator. She has demonstrated the ability to remain at least moderately organized with three children under the age of five at home and a husband that is also an honors student and very busy. Bolan believes she has what it takes to run a classroom in an orderly fashion, and ultimately an entire school.

   So finally, after almost two years of college and over a decade of pondering, all it took was a group of third graders to convince her that she was supposed to be a teacher.