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The little red light achieved an amused reaction from 32-year-old Rhiannon Bowman. “It’s kind of different being on the other side of the tape recorder,” said Bowman, Communications major, Mass Media track, and Journalism minor.
In the Cone Center sipping her Ritazza coffee, Bowman gave a glimpse into her nontraditional route to spring graduation.
Bowman began college in the fall of 1995 at Auburn University at Montgomery, Alabama. While attending full time, she managed an off-campus bookstore. After her junior year, she moved to Atlanta, Ga., because of an offer to open a bookstore at Georgia Tech. She had intentions of going right back to school; but four years later and with a different career, she finally ended up attending Georgia State University.
At GSU she was on the track to becoming a financial planner, and for a time she said, “I was a hot shot insurance agent … and abruptly got laid off,” she quietly laughed. Bowman then continued saying how after that, “I really just kind of crumbled … I was just looking for a change – that’s how I got to North Carolina.”
She moved to Shelby and lived across from a church; “Big lesson learned there, I should have researched Shelby a bit more,” and “I just thought I was in some kind of quaint, little, small North Carolina town,” said Bowman. She lived there for six months, and within that time she was robbed twice and once woke up with someone in her bedroom doorway.
“That’s what brought me all the way to Charlotte,” Bowman said. She moved into an apartment with nothing, because of the previous robbery in Shelby. “I was just standing on my porch one day in the fall, literally watching the leaves fall off the trees, and I was just thinking, ‘What is it that I actually want to do?’ because I just felt like I was really floundering. What I’d always wanted to do was to be a writer,” said Bowman.
With that realization, she started looking into colleges around Charlotte and was determined to finish what she had started. She had a total of five years in college, had changed her major twice, and she made the point, “I probably had the credit hours, but just didn’t have the degree. I got sick and tired of checking the some college box. I know that’s stupid, but it was almost offensive to me to have taken so many college hours and to have so much real life experience, and still not be able to say ‘I’m a college graduate,’” Bowman said.
She saw the Journalism minor at UNC Charlotte and decided to enroll and earn her degree. She has been a student at UNCC for two and a half years. Yet before she began school in the fall of 2006 she worked in the summer for the University Times as a writer, building her portfolio of clips.
Bowman has also written for the Mountain Island Monitor, Union County Weekly, UNC Charlotte Alumni Magazine, Creative Loafing, Skirt Magazine, and freelances for Charlotte’s University City magazine.
When Bowman first started at UNCC, she had a 40-hour a week job in the insurance industry, and her boss was inflexible. He would not work with her school schedule, which limited her to night classes.
“I really didn’t feel I had much of a choice,” as she referred to why she felt it was necessary to quit her job and start taking day and summer classes, which would enable her to finish her degree in a timely manner.
With the help of her husband, who she refers to as “Mr. Wonderful” on her blog, she was able to quit her job and can now graduate this semester. “I couldn’t have a better supporter,” said Bowman.
For her last semester, she is enrolled in nine credit hours and has an internship at Creative Loafing. As for her internship, she says it keeps her busy and, “I’m one of those people, I just don’t turn down work.”
In addition, she has started her own business, called Word Trade, a company devoted to helping small businesses write corporate material. She is meshing her life experiences and business majors with her passion, and soon degree, in the field of writing.
Poignantly she said, “I’ve had a lot of trials and stuff, but the people I really find amazing are the people, men and women, who have children at home, who have jobs, who have spouses – and they are still out here finishing their degrees. I just don’t know how they do it. I’m just really impressed by all of them.” She went on to give a warm thanks to the people of the Office of Adult Students and Evening Services, who have helped her from the beginning at UNCC.
Recently, Bowman’s mother retired and went back to college. She is attending Auburn University, Montgomery, as an Art major. Bowman said that her mother going back to college has strengthened their relationship, in the respect that they can relate to one another on managing schedules and classes.
On the topic of understanding others and living one’s own life, an adage of Bowman’s is, “There’s a whole lot of ways to be in this great, big world. There’s no one way to live.”
Her path is intricate and nontraditional, but she said, “Of the three colleges I’ve attended, I’m really proud to be graduating from UNC Charlotte.” Tears filled her eyes while Bowman spoke, as she talked about her upcoming graduation and freedom. For her future, Bowman plans to continue freelance writing, building her company, and hanging up her diploma.
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