The years between WSU

Melanie Jones is graduating this fall semester, 25 years after her first course at Weber State University. Jones has been attending WSU on and off over a quarter of a century. But she kept coming back even after ended marriages, after she had her daughters and after complicated medical issues reshaped her life. Her WSU career has been a long road, beginning in the fall of 1983 just after high school. With money left to her from her grandparents, a young Jones enrolled in her first semester of college, back when WSU was known as Weber State College.
Jones has earned her associate in general studies, an emphasis Jones attributes to her inability to find the perfect major. Calling Jones enthusiastic seems to shortfall her wide array of interests. Since attending WSU she has taken classes across the board, from Classical Guitar to Biomed Corps, from American Sign Language to Criminal Investigation to Russian 1010.
“Every teacher I had was so passionate about what he or she was teaching it made me enjoy the subject even more. It got me excited about almost every subject.”
In 2007 Jones even traveled abroad with WSU to England, Scotland and Ireland with a study-abroad course. In a breathy voice from lingering lung issues, Jones recounted the excitement she felt as the plane crossed the Atlantic, her first trip to Europe.
“That was the first time I ever flew over the Atlantic,” Jones said, “so it was very memorable. I couldn’t sleep hardly at all on the airplane.”
Dropouts are expected by any university or college, and have become frequent among the student population. According to American College Testing (ACT), one in four freshmen will drop out of school by the end of the year, and an estimated 12 percent of returning undergraduate students were at one time college dropouts.
“There’s a lot of things that pull people away from college at a given time,” said the Nontraditional Student Center’s director, Debbie Cragun, “and there are seasons in life. Obviously we’re in a state where families are involved. They have kids that start school or ailing parents they have to care for at their home, lost jobs … there’s all kinds of factors that determine why people start school or have to leave and come back.”
After a year and a half Jones dropped out of college because she was unable to pay for the following semester. For the next 18 years Jones lived another life outside of the campus she would later come back to the university.
From that semester in 1984, her final semester for over a decade, she fell in love and was married by 1987. With her first husband Jones had two girls, but by the time her youngest was born Jones was separated and seeking a divorce. It was then that she picked up an old correspondence from high school, a boy she had talked to in Algeria. After writing back and forth, he moved to America and the two married. Jones had her third child shortly after. But by 2000, Jones’ second marriage was ending over irreconcilable differences of religion. Jones was now a single mother of three.
Just after her divorce, from a mixture of a prescribed medication and severe stress at the ending of her second marriage, her immune system broke down and Jones contracted a rare bacterial infection in her lungs. For the next few years, Jones was on a strict antibiotics regiment.
It was during this time Jones came back to WSU. She enrolled as a part-time student in 2002, continuing where she left off in 1984. But by 2005 she had to drop out again. Complications with the infection forced her into surgery, where a portion of her lung was removed. While Jones planned on coming back the next fall, her plans were postponed again when her diaphragm fell into her abdomen. A risky surgery, Jones’ life was saved, but once again her education was postponed.
By the summer of 2006, Jones was finally back in school. It was the third and final enrollment Jones would make in earning her associate degree. Jones, now in her 40s, still wants to come back to WSU, hoping to continue her education by earning her Bachelors of Integrated Science.
“While I was doing that I kept thinking, ‘What do I want to major in besides my general studies?’ I kept changing it so many times I just decided to get my general degree out of the way. I was going to do my BIS in English, zoology and geology so I can write on conservation articles.”