Mother Hopes To Inspire Others After Fast-Track Diploma Experience At Northwood Technical College
SUPERIOR, Wis. — We don’t always get to see the impact stories we share have on the community. We were lucky enough to have one local woman reach out to us, sharing her story of achieving an education later in life, thanks to an education institution we reported on in Superior. Now, she’s hoping to inspire others to reach for the stars, no matter their setbacks in life.
“My son did it, and I was like, ‘well, how did you go about doing this? He’s like, well, Ma, look at this story,'” said Laura Defoe, who received the Fast-Track HSED.
That story from FOX 21 was about Northwood Technical College’s fast-track program for High School Equivalency Diplomas.
For 46-year-old Defoe, a mother of three young men, this was her chance to move beyond her past struggles – from depression and addiction, a brief time in jail, and a very early pregnancy.
“I had gotten pregnant in high school and, well, back then, I don’t know if the teachers necessarily knew how to deal with it. Not a lot of them. But well anyways, I couldn’t handle it. I couldn’t handle being pregnant in high school,” said Defoe.
Fast forward to today, and she’s is feeling on top of her world, ready to inspire others, and let them know that their actions in the past don’t define their future.
“I walked in here and it was just like, I am doing this. I want this, and this is a dream come true. This is an opportunity, and I was taking it,” said Defoe.
Laura’s sons
Defoe also found help through Sylwia Lis, a support instructor at Northwood Tech.
“We are giving people not only the second chance, but for some of them just the first chance to even complete, since we are really basing the entire program on what the actual student needs,” said Lis.
An important lesson Defoe wants people to take from her story is that it’s never too late to achieve your dreams. Northwoods Tech offers academic support to students to help them achieve their dreams, all it takes is getting in touch.
“I felt very ashamed for needing the help, for not doing it back then, for my life choices that led me to not getting my diploma. To be able to let that go in accepting the help, I feel like that’s huge,” said Defoe.
“We usually have a fantastic orientation to get students very familiar with what we do here, how we do it, what are their potential pathways, and we explain everything step by step. And if they feel like this is something they would like to do, then we just keep moving from them. So all really students need to do is just to reach out to us, and we’ll take it from there,” said Lis.
It’s a new opportunity at life, and one Defoe says is driven by her three sons and their lives ahead.
“My boys are everything. They are my reason why of everything I do. They mean everything, and I want to show them that doesn’t matter what happens in life. You can come back, and you can make mistakes, and that’s okay, you can still carry on with what you’re gonna, you want to do in life,” said Defoe.
