The Military, Motivation, and Doing College All Over Again

After dropping out of college the first time, I figured higher education just wasn’t for me. Then I joined the Army—and suddenly, there I was, back at it again. Only this time, the motivation was completely different. Providing for my son lit a fire under me. I went from “College? Again?” to “Let’s go. Earn the promotion. Get the paycheck. Buy the diapers.”

Back then, online education carried a heavy stigma, but I made a pact with myself: if I was going to do this, I’d do it all the way. Read every lesson. Watch every lecture. Prove that this path was just as valid as sitting in a classroom.

In this episode, I share how I turned that “second chance” into an opportunity, earning my associate’s and bachelor’s degrees through discipline, focus, and sheer determination. It wasn’t glamorous, but it gave me the confidence I lacked the first time around. And it taught me that while an external motivator can get you started, the real growth and sustainment of that growth comes from within.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction: Starting Again
• 1:42 Why I Joined the Army
• 3:45 Motherhood Changed My Priorities
• 8:25 Online School and Making a Pact
• 15:32 From Nursing to Business Degree
• 19:30 Finding My Motivation and Conclusion

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Oh we could, we could fly. Welcome back to have a Cup of Johnny. This season isn't about hustling harder. It's about coming home to yourself, to your voice, to your breath, to the quiet truth that you're still here and you're not starting over. You're starting again. This is your space to reflect, reset and remember who we tell you are. So pour your cafecito and let's begin.

Speaker 2: 0:37

Hello everyone and welcome back to have a Cup of Johnny podcast this month. I am talking about lessons learned in higher education because September always feels like the fresh notebooks and new beginnings, even for us adults. Last episode, I shared how I started college way too young, how I wanted out of my house badly, how I wanted out of my house badly and how I ended up in a community college not really ready for any of it and the season then that ended with me dropping out because I was feeling like I was draining money and not really getting anywhere. So what happened next? Well, today I am talking to you into my second round with higher education, the army years, the online school, and why sometimes the reason you go back is totally different than the reason you started. Are you ready? Let's go All right.

Speaker 2: 1:48

After dropping out, I knew I couldn't just go back home and I dropped out because I had another avenue of approach, so I did it simultaneously. I made the conscious decision to drop out because I had another outlet, another way to get out of the house, and that was by joining the Army. The military gave me the distance structure and the steady paycheck which I desperately needed as a young person at the time, but I'm not going to lie I didn't have any plans of going back to college anytime. Soon after joining I was like I'm going to take this break and just going to learn a certain skill and then get out Long and behold my priorities change once I became pregnant and had my son, and then I had to look at life a whole lot more serious, because now I had this other human being that was fully dependent on me, just on me, because I didn't have his father around. So then, when things got serious, I had to look at the army, which was the environment that I was in, the place that I was in, and started to dissect its rules, its rules for promotion, for advancement, because I needed the money I needed now to provide for another human being, and that's not something that I'm going to like bull, jive you on right. I didn't have this like motivation to like I want to be this leader, you know, I want to like inspire people and all this other stuff. No, my motivation was I needed to get more money, because now I had a kid that completely depended on me and because of that we got to look at the money situation. Kids need money to thrive, to survive. So I had a very pragmatic view of things. So I was like how can I earn more money? By getting promoted? That was the answer. Then, how do I get promoted? That was the next question. Well, by earning points.

Speaker 2: 4:19

In the enlisted side of the house you earn points by doing certain things going to the board, taking correspondence courses, which I was doing even before I became pregnant and gave birth to my child. But I didn't have a sense of urgency before, right when I was doing those things. I just knew I wanted to advance, but I wanted to advance at a slower pace because I was just having fun. But then the sense of urgency kicked in. Then I was like how can I earn more points? Well, you earn more points by getting a degree. And that's the thing. Regardless of whether you're an officer or an enlisted, especially if you're an enlisted in certain specialties like my specialty, an enlisted, especially if you're an enlisted in certain specialties like my specialty that have very high points, where you have to have almost all of the points, it requires you to gain a degree. So you don't even have to be an officer. If you're in my specialty, you're going to have a degree, and that's what ended up happening.

Speaker 2: 5:23

I knew that I would have to face college again Once again, not like one of those human beings that dislike the scholarly life I am. I'm a nerd, I'm a geek. I love reading. I love listening to a professor, to a teacher, giving me instructions and then me putting those instructions into play and actioning it. I've enjoyed that quite a lot my entire life. So I knew that I had it in me and I knew that my love of reading will always help me out in that environment.

Speaker 2: 5:57

However, my maturity level was the reason as to why I had to leave college in the first place. I wasn't mature enough to be focused and I didn't have the life skills necessary and you heard me saying that in the previous episode, and, if not, go to that one and listen to that one as well but I didn't have the life skills necessary. You need basic life skills in order to thrive away from the house, even if it's just a few blocks away from the house, and I didn't have those. Particularly, I didn't know how to make a daily schedule and focus within that daily schedule, so that way I can achieve the things that I needed to achieve and the things that I wanted to achieve and instead, because I've been constricted for so long my entire, almost my entire childhood really, and young adult years then what happened was I didn't know what to have with all this time and all that I wanted to do was have fun, have all the fun I never had during those other years. And there went my focus and there went me learning how a lot time for the things that I need to do to thrive in this new adult life that I found myself in.

Speaker 2: 7:19

But you know, here comes the army, here comes the military that gives you this certain structure in a way, pushes on you, forces you to have a schedule and then, from that being forced on you, it's almost like for me I don't know other people's experience it kind of forced me then to create my own based off of the example that the army had given me. So, little by little, I was learning and I was gaining the knowledge on how to exercise these life skills, because through basic training and then just being in the army, it's like the army forces that upon you. So you're going to learn one way or another. Some people don't ever learn and they end up leaving the military without learning those and I don't know. I mean they will have to talk about their experiences on their own.

Speaker 2: 8:16

As an outside peeking in to me, it just seemed as if they didn't fully embrace the system and that rejection just kept them from being fully in the team, and I'm sure they had their good reasons as to why that happened. For me, I embrace most of it. I do have to say that even to this day, I'm still very quote unquote civilian-like, because I made a choice even back then, when I was highly immature, to not lose the parts of my personality that made me me. So I kept some of me within me, but I took what I needed and I learned even more, and then I ended up thriving. Back to getting points. I needed points. I needed to get promoted. Therefore, I needed college.

Speaker 2: 9:17

So here I was, full circle. The same girl who had stumbled at a community college was now looking into going back to school, but for a completely different reason. But for a completely different reason, not because I felt ready, but because I needed to get promoted. I needed the money to support my son and I was essentially working full-time as an active duty soldier the only thing really that I can do because I didn't want to take away more time out of my life and taking care of my son by going to night classes. I figured that online school will be the one option that will work with me and my lifestyle.

Speaker 2: 10:05

Mind you, back then, online school didn't have the respect that it has now. School didn't have the respect that it has now. People look down at it quite a lot. It's not so bad right now, but back then people were like, what you know? If you tell anyone you know, particularly outside of the military, that you were going to online school, or even people within the military, particularly those that went to brick and mortar schools and that's how they earned their degree, it was like, oh, you went to online school, you know, you're getting your degree from an online college. It almost seems like they were saying you're getting your degree from a jack in the box or something like that.

Speaker 2: 10:44

But I was like, once again, I do. I was a reader. You know I am a reader. I'm a nerd. I thrive when it comes to reading and dissecting information in that form.

Speaker 2: 10:58

So I made a pact with myself and, looking back at my life, there were all these particular moments where I make these pacts with myself and then it ends up being kind of like life-changing these, like pivotal moments there and, sure enough, here. I made a pact with myself. I was like I will read everything that the professor gives me to read. I will read all the pamphlets, all the textbooks, all the notes. You know, I will take notes and I will be like a sponge to where, when I get this degree and people test my knowledge, they won't know that it came from an online college.

Speaker 2: 11:44

That was a pact that I made with myself. I knew that I had missed my chance to go to a brick and mortar school. I knew that I was in this point in my life where I needed to advance in order to earn more money so that way I can take care of my son. I knew the only way to do that was through going to college, and the only way I could go to college was to go online. So I made this pact with myself in order to thrive in that environment as well and make the most out of it. And it was almost as if I was trying to correct what I had done in the past with the resources that I had in my present time. So that's what I did no skipping, no shortcuts. Every reading, every lecture. I was there at night absorbing it. You know, I remember particularly moments that I was after work, tired, breastfeeding my son, and I had a textbook or a binder, something in front of me and reading it.

Speaker 2: 12:58

Because now I had this motivation per se and I had some skills as well, not as many as I have now, but I had some skills enough to get me through that time in my life. But I think, most importantly, it was that motivation. And I tell my son this, and I don't think he understands how serious I mean it, but he became kind of like that beacon, that motivation that I needed to be the person that I am today. And I don't know if that's how it is for other moms or other parents, but without him I don't think I will be where I am right now. I was meant to have my son and I truly believe that, and I tell him that in almost every birthday card I write. I don't think he understands, but he is the motivation that I needed, he is my motivation that keeps me going.

Speaker 2: 14:00

And I had that responsibility and I had this opportunity once again, just in a different form, and I wasn't about to waste it not this time around. So I earned my associates, and it was an associates of whatever I could, compiled with the classes I had taken before and the degree that I hadn't finished before because I had dropped out of college. So I took that, brought that in and then melded into whatever I took and I ended up having a justice administration associate with that, all completely online. And then came my bachelor's, you know, and I did the same thing, right, rolled over that associate, took a few classes At this time, something that I hadn't shared with you was that I was still stuck on nursing classes.

Speaker 2: 15:04

I really thought I wanted to be a nurse. Really, I listened to my mom and her counsel to me that this was something that I was naturally good at. Also, the nurses at the hospital, when they saw me taking care of my grandma, told me that. So those voices right. And I was young, I was really impressionable. So it was easy for me to, not knowing myself, to believe somebody else telling me who I was. So and I listened and I went with it.

Speaker 2: 15:36

So, even while going online school, trying to achieve my bachelor's this time around, I was also going for a nursing degree this time around, but there was still something in the back of my mind, you know, that said that this was not for me. And you know, when you don't listen to that like life just keeps throwing rocks at you until you get it. And that's what essentially happened with this nursing degree, because it's like I kept hitting a wall time and time and time again when it comes to it. First of all, you can't wholly finish a bachelor's in nursing completely online. So I got like three years worth of it, but then it came a time when I needed to go to practicals. And guess what? I couldn't, because now we're deploying, you know. And my commander was like no, I can't let you go, just so you can finish this degree. You know, you got to, got to deploy with us, we need you here and there goes that.

Speaker 2: 16:37

So I was back again going to educational counselor and the army base that I was in and asking what can I do with all these classes that tie to nothing I can do right now, which was a mixture of justice, administration and a lot of natural sciences, you know, and nursing classes, and she was like well, the closest that you can do is a business degree, I was like I like money, I want to run my own business, you know, in the future. I was like, yes, let's go with that. So this amalgamation of justice administration classes and nursing classes after a few more courses I think I want to say like I still needed to do like five or six courses became my bachelor's degree in business administration and I got all the points right. Even before I got that degree, I got all the points with associates. It wasn't glamorous, it was not glamorous, it was the most ugly kind of growth you could ever imagine. It was like I was doing the low crawl in a cave that was muddy cave that was muddied. That's how it looked. But here's what I learned Sometimes you need an external motivator to push you back onto that path and for me it was my son.

Speaker 2: 18:12

It was my son in realizing I have this entire human being now that is solely depending on me. So now I need to provide. How do I provide? I figured out it was through more promotion points and getting promoted. And boom, that was the spark.

Speaker 2: 18:29

But what kept me going wasn't the army, it wasn't more promotions, it was me. Me, it wasn't more promotions, it was me. It was that discipline that I built, the focus that I finally found and the realization that I could succeed at something even if I had once failed at it. And I think that's the lesson here, the important lesson for anyone listening the reason you go back to school or go back to anything you have once failed doesn't have to be perfect. You don't even need a noble reason. As you can see, I needed more money. It just has to be enough to get you started, just has to be enough to get you started. The rest comes from what you build in yourself along the way. So, vacitos, this is my second chapter in the story of higher education. As you can see, these lessons are not scholarly tied, but they're tied to life the army years and my comeback through online school. The army years and my comeback through online school that's all life. Next time, I'll share how I took education even further, no longer for promotions or paychecks, but for me.

Speaker 2: 19:51

And speaking of doing things for me, I want to remind you, listeners, that my novel, the Ordinary Bruja, is officially up for pre-order. I'll be releasing it November 1st 2025. This is the book of my heart, y'all. It's the story I always wanted to read but couldn't find a story about identity, dominican magic, revenge and learning to embrace who you are. You can pre-order your copy today at haveacupofjoanicom. You know, I'll put the link in the show notes. And hey, if today's story connected with you, I'd love to hear from you. You can email me at joa at haveacupofjoanicom, or hang out with me on TikTok. I'm there with two profiles One is at A Cup of Joani and the other one is the book Bruja. Or you can hang out with me on Instagram at have A Cup of Joani. Of course, I will link all of that in the show notes for you. Until next time, remember, the second chance might just be the one that sticks. You never know.

Speaker 1: 21:12

Bye, more stories, blog posts and the bits that started it all. Thank you for being here. Until next time, be soft, be bold and always have a cup of John.