We Are GC&SU: Kathy Hill

When Kathy Hill drives home everyday, a long and winding road awaits her. This does not bother Hill though. Her life has been a long and winding road. At least this road is smooth, and no surprises lie around the bend. She cannot say that about all the paths she has taken in life. This month, her longest winding road will come to an end. In just a few short days, after 24 years and six different colleges, Hill will finally graduate with a BBA in Office Systems Administrations.

“It is just a goal I have always had,” Hill said. “It is just something that I’ve always had in the back of my mind. I don’t plan on even doing anything with the degree, but it is just something that I had to do for myself.”

Her husband Jeff Hill has been beside her most of that journey and said that graduating has been one of the most important goals in Hill’s life.

“There are two or three things in life that mean a lot to Kathy,” Jeff Hill said. “One was Courtney’s happiness. The other one was our second marriage that we had in the Catholic Church. And this third one is for her to graduate from college.”

Since becoming a student at GC&SU in 1992,

Hill has amassed a considerable resume. She is a member of the Beta Gamma Sigma honors society and has accumulated an impressive grade point average.

“It went down to a 3.92 when I got my (first) B,” Hill said. “Mandy calls me a geek all the time because I study all the time, but it just kills me to get less that an A.”

Her first B came this past spring semester, and her husband said that it was not for a lack of trying on Hill’s part.

“She’s never done bad, but when she deviated from the 4.0, which was the first time that I’ve seen her do that, she worked harder during that (semester) than she ever had,” Jeff Hill said.

Hill’s college career began by attending the State University of New York in 1981. At the time, two years of school seemed like it would be enough.

“I got my associates degree, and at the time that meant something,” Hill said.

Yet, even with the associate’s degree in marketing, she could not find a decent occupation. So, in 1987, she joined the United States Air Force.

“It’s a long story, but basically I couldn’t find a job,” Hill said. “Rather than starve to death and be a waitress all my life, (the Air Force) is the route I took. I was hoping that I could get back into school once I joined, but it never happened. I was actually stationed in a mobile unit where we’d go out into the field once a month. It wasn’t possible to take classes.”

During the same year she joined the Air Force, Hill met a young airman named Jeff Hill. After only eight months, he would make her his wife.

“We met in November of 1987 and got married in June of 1988,” Hill said.

Shortly after her marriage, Hill decided to become pregnant with her daughter Courtney. Because of this, she was unable to perform in the field with her unit and was finally allowed to take a class again.

“I took one class at Macon State when I was pregnant with Courtney and could not go anywhere,” Hill said. “I took trig that term, and Courtney is better in math than anything else, so we attribute it to that.”

After Courtney was born, both parents left the military so they could spend more time with their daughter. Over the course of the next few years, Hill would attend various universities until 1992, when she arrived in Milledgeville and Georgia College. However, she would not begin attending consistently until 2002.

Over the course of those years, both Hill and her husband would experience the pressures and pains that school can place on a family.

“Many times I wanted to give up,” Hill said. “It has been extremely difficult. Jeff has always been very supportive of me doing it, but there have also been times when he is tired of me studying, and I know that he is looking more forward to me being through more than I am.”

Mandy Smith, one of Hill’s colleagues and a personal friend, said that she admired all the hard work and determination that Hill has shown.

“I think it is hard when you have a lot on you, and you want to be a good mom, and you’re wanting to be a good wife, and you want to be involved in your church, but you are also wanting to go to school and all the time it takes to study. And you are working full-time on top of it,” Smith said. “It is just a juggling act. I just applaud people who are able to pull it off.”

One unexpected benefit of Hill’s perseverance was the effect it would have on Courtney, now a 16-year-old junior in high school.

“It gives her a little more initiative to see what her mom is doing and realizing that college is important,” Jeff Hill said. “It has put her in a forward momentum to get there. She has actually been talking this year about what kind of grades she needs to keep that momentum going, and I think that has a lot to do with Kathy.”

For her part, Hill believes that going to school at the same time as Courtney has also enabled her to better relate to her daughter.

“She has been going through a lot of pressure right now with some of the classes, knowing that she has to do well. And I understand that better because I am taking classes too, and I understand the stress and pressure behind that,” Hill said.

Once her daughter graduates from high school, Hill plans on continuing her education even further by tackling graduate school.

“I honestly believe that once you stop learning you might as well die,” Hill said.

As for any advice she would give to those students who would follow her down the long and winding road, she only suggests that they focus early on what they want and need to do.

“The only thing that I see that students really mess up on is coming to school and playing,” Hill said. “I mean, their first two terms they just play around and don’t realize what they do by not studying.”

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Dec 2 2005. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry