THE JASMINE PIVOT

Going Back to School Changed More Than My Résumé

Going back to school did not feel triumphant. It felt like logging into the portal at 11:42 p.m., eyes burning, after telling one child that the math worksheet really did need to be finished and reminding another where their favorite stuffed animal went. It felt like wondering if I was a little bit out of my mind for adding college-level discussion posts on top of homeschooling lessons, client work, marriage, laundry, and the never-ending “what are we eating” question.

On paper, the decision sounded clean. I would go back, earn my BA in General Studies with an Entrepreneurship concentration and a History minor, finish in 2025, and create more options for myself as an entrepreneur and professional. A clearer résumé. A stronger business foundation. Some updated language for LinkedIn. That was what I thought school would give me: credentials, frameworks, and a more legitimate place at the table.

What I did not fully understand was what it would feel like to be a wife, a mom of three, a homeschooling parent, and a business owner while trying to read dense articles about economic theory or write a history paper with a real thesis and twenty sources. The brochure version of “working student” does not usually show you the part where you are editing a paper with one hand and wiping peanut butter off the table with the other. It does not tell you that sometimes, the only quiet place to take a quiz is in your car in the driveway, with the dome light off so no one knows you are still awake.

I expected school to be structured and neatly contained. A set of assignments. A list of due dates. I would fit it into the margins of my already full life. That is not what happened. School seeped into everything. History lectures became part of our homeschool conversations. My kids would ask what I was reading and I would find myself explaining primary sources at the kitchen counter. A marketing case study would sit open next to their handwriting practice. I would be in entrepreneurship class one hour, then turning around and applying those same ideas to my own business the next.

The difficulty was not just the workload. It was the mental whiplash. Switching from third grade grammar to graduate-level readings, from snack prep to strategic planning, from tuck-in time to APA citations. There were nights when my brain felt like an overstuffed browser with thirty tabs open, all of them important, none of them allowed to crash. I cried more than once from simple exhaustion. I doubted myself often. I wondered who I was trying to prove something to and whether it would really be worth it in the end.

The surprise was that the hardest parts were the ones that quietly changed me. In the beginning, the degree felt like something “out there” that I was chasing. A future credential. A line on the résumé that would signal to other people that I was serious and capable. Somewhere between the late nights, the messy drafts, and the relentless calendar reminders, the center of gravity shifted. I started to notice that I was not just collecting grades. I was growing a different kind of self trust.

It did not arrive as a single breakthrough moment. It was more like a series of quiet checks I kept cashing. Turning in a paper I was sure was terrible and finding out I could hold my own. Presenting in class after spending the afternoon teaching my kids and realizing my voice did not disappear just because I had been in mom mode all day. Making it through a semester that looked impossible on the calendar. Again and again, I kept discovering that I could do more than I thought, not because I am superhuman, but because I was willing to keep pivoting instead of quitting.

By the time I crossed the stage in 2025 with my BA in General Studies, Entrepreneurship concentration, and History minor, the piece of paper in my hand mattered. I worked hard for it. But the bigger shift was internal. I had proof that I could evolve inside a life that was already full. I did not have to wait for a quieter season or a perfect plan to start learning at a higher level. I could be a wife, a mom of three, a homeschooling teacher, and an entrepreneur, and still claim space for my own intellectual growth.

Now I am finishing my MBA in Entrepreneurship, and the context is the same. My kids are still homeschooled. The laundry still multiplies. My marriage and my business still need attention. The difference is that I know something about myself that I did not know before. I know that I can hold complexity without disappearing. I know that my brain lights up when I am building something, whether that is a family routine or a new business model. I know that I am allowed to take my own growth seriously, even when it looks inconvenient from the outside.

Sometimes the next chapter starts with simply being willing to pivot. For me, that pivot was logging into a class when it would have been easier to scroll my phone, asking for help when I felt over my head, and letting myself be a beginner again in my thirties while packing snacks for field trips. Going back to school changed my résumé, yes. But more than that, it changed the story I tell myself about who I am and what I am still capable of becoming.