Meet Anne Clark: Turning Frustration into Motivation

Anne Clark's principal at Lincoln Charter School wanted to promote her. Anne had been at the school for years and the principal knew she was smart and hard working. The school's board wouldn't approve the promotion unless she earned certain credentials. Anne says. "I got frustrated I had been at the school so long and that was holding me back. I figured that if that was all I needed, then I should just do it."

Anne had to start with her Associate's degree. "I looked immediately at online schools. I am a single mom of four kids and was working full-time. I wouldn't be able to fit school into my life any way other than online, on my own schedule."

Anne spent around two months researching different online schools and says the single biggest factor in her picking AIU Online was her Admissions Advisor, Jared. "He just was so outstanding. He set up everything that needed to be done and answered all of my questions. He spent time showing me around the Virtual Campus and even helped me with my admissions papers. He's still my buddy."

But Jared wasn't the only reason Anne picked AIU Online. She liked the accelerated pace courses move at. "I was excited about the fast pace. When you've waited as long as I did to go back to school, you want to get it done as quickly as possible. AIU Online has it just right: it's fast, but I don't feel rushed. There is still time to learn all the concepts."

Anne graduated with her Associate's degree in March, with a 4.0 GPA, and was soon thereafter promoted to Reading Tutor at her school. But the one degree and single promotion weren't enough for Anne. She didn't even take a break before jumping right back into courses through AIU Online to earn her Bachelor of Business Administration with a concentration in Organizational Psychology and Development. She is just a bit over half-way through that BBA degree completion program and has already used some of the things she has learned to effect significant changes in her new position.

"In one of my classes we learned about a system a lot of big corporations use to evaluate their employees. Well, at school, one of the counselors was trying to figure out a way we could rank students' needs. I thought I could modify (the system) to evaluate students rather than employees."

Anne was right. She was able to set up an Excel-based system that not only analyzed students' needs, but also did so in a timely manner. "Before we were doing this using a paper form and the results took months to get. With this new system, you have the results in a matter of hours." Anne's new system has revolutionized the way her school's Reading Tutors track students' progress. Her evaluating program will soon be tested on a trial basis throughout the entire school.

"This makes such a big difference because it shows real results almost instantly. We don't have to wait six months to see if what we're doing is working. When you only have kids for nine months, a very small amount of time, every day counts."

"Thanks to all of the books I've read over the last year and all the papers I've written, I am a lot smarter, better educated, and more informed than I ever was."

After finishing her Bachelor's degree, Anne plans to pursue her M.Ed. and get her teaching certificate and her guidance counselor certificate elsewhere. "As soon as I'm done with my Bachelor's, I'm going to get a Master's degree." There's little chance anything is going to stand in Anne's way anymore.

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