Tara Bottoms
AABA - Business Graduate

Meet Tara Bottoms: Finally Getting It Done

Tara Bottoms had all these accumulated credits and nothing to do with them. She tried a distance education program—lectures were via videotape—but it lasted only a week. "It was such a joke," Tara says. Then Tara found AIU Online. She saw it was easy to transfer all the credits she had already earned and liked the Admissions Advisor she was matched with. She enrolled in AIU Online's Associate degree in Business Administration program and graduated less than two years later. She is the first in her family to earn an Associate degree.

While Tara excelled at AIU Online, her early education was anything but excellent. She dropped out of school at age 16 after finishing 8th grade. "I despised it," she says. Tara's mom was smart enough to make Tara get her GED however. "She had dropped out of school herself, as had my father, but she didn't then go and get her GED. She was bound and determined I would get mine. I respect my mother for this and all she has done for me; I know I've grown up a better person because of this."

Post GED, Tara took some healthcare classes and eventually tried to get a nursing degree from a technical school. "It just didn't feel right though and I had gotten pregnant with my second child."

The "stupid" video class came along after the birth of her daughter. "It was horrible. The lectures were awful and the professor was never available. I dropped that class so quickly." It was after that that Tara realized she had all these credits from her time in technical schools and community colleges and that they were doing nothing for her. "I got serious about sitting down and actually finishing a degree program, otherwise I would be wasting all of the classes I had already taken and finished."

Because of her bad experience with the previous nontraditional education she had tried, Tara was a little leery of an online degree. "I had nothing to worry about though. I learned so much, the classes were totally challenging, and when I had a question the professors would often get back to me in a matter of hours. It was 100 times better than any other school I had done before." Tara does admit to "having to kick myself in the butt to motivate sometimes."

Despite her occasional motivation problems, Tara's experience at AIU Online was so good she has convinced her husband George to get his degree from the university too. A law enforcement officer for 12 years, George is now in the middle of an Associate degree in Criminal Justice. "I'm glad I was able to show my family we can get college degrees.

Tara's daughter and step-daughter now have a new role model. "With a degree, I can be a role model for my girls. I have more respect for myself and am confident the future of my kids includes a college education."

Tara's own education isn't quite finished yet either. She is now preparing to start for her Bachelor's degree in Nursing. While she can't do that degree at AIU Online, Tara happily discovered all of the credits she earned at AIU Online easily transferred to her nursing school. "I'm not the only one who knows that the classes at AIU are as challenging and in-depth as those anywhere!"

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