Two Is Better Than One

Caring for a three-year-old is difficult enough when both parents work full time. When both parents are also going to school, it gets even more challenging. But Nicole and Josh Frye, high school sweethearts who married a few months after they graduated, wouldn’t have it any other way.

“With us both in school, we know exactly what the other one is going through," Nicole explains. "It makes it easier to be supportive. And we're a very convenient study group.”

AIU Online isn’t Nicole’s first experience with an online university, though. “I did another school first, but it was horrible. I felt like I was just paying for them to tell me I had graduated. The classes were way too easy, and I wasn’t learning anything. When I started to question why I was doing it, I started looking around at other schools and found AIU Online.” Then she convinced Josh to do it with her.

Nicole and Josh both earned their Associate’s degrees at AIU Online, but they will use them in very different ways. Nicole, currently the staff manager for Pampered Pooch, a Virginia-based pet-sitting service, and the founder of her own dog walking business, A Walk N the Park, plans on doing a professional 180.

“Initially I was going to get an accounting degree and work for a firm in Washington, D.C. Then the idea was to still get the accounting degree, but just use it to take on more responsibilities at Pampered Pooch. But when the time came to decide on my major, I went with Criminal Justice. My father is a police officer and my mother a social worker. When it came down to it, I just knew that it was criminal justice and not accounting that I was meant for.”

While a degree in Criminal Justice will help prepare her for a variety of careers, Nicole is pretty sure she wants to work with victims of crimes rather than solving the crimes themselves. “I think that is the best way I can make a difference in someone's life.”

Josh, on the other hand, doesn’t have anything specific in mind. “I’ll be getting out of the Army in less than a year and I want to have a degree to go along with all of the experience I already have. The military has such great education benefits, it seemed a waste if I didn’t take advantage of them. And even though I don’t know specifically what I want to do with a degree, having a degree never hurts. If anything, it gives me more options.”

Josh just finished his Associate of Arts in Business Administration and is jumping right into a Bachelor’s program in Information Technology. “I’m working as a computer specialist at the National Military Command Center in the Pentagon right now, supporting the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I’m hoping that experience will help me out a bit in the classes to come.”

Although the two are glad to be doing their schooling together, not surprisingly, there have been a few hurdles. “If we both have to be on the computer at the same time, it gets rough,” says Nicole. “It’s nice if Josh can do some of his schoolwork while at work. And when we’re in the same classes, we've started asking professors to make sure and put us in the same study groups. That makes things much more manageable.”

“Like anything that seems overwhelming at first, you just have to find a system that works for you,” Nicole says.

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