New MSU major offers 'second chance' at bachelor degree
At Thanksgiving, 58-year-old Dennis Wiggins broke the news to his parents: He was finally going to graduate from college.
It had been 40 years since he finished high school and decades since he left Missouri State University just shy of the requirements to earn a bachelor's degree.
"I made it up to having enough credits to graduate, but I never could pass college algebra," he said. "My mind doesn't work that way."
Wiggins waited for the holiday to even tell his parents he was enrolled in the final class he'd need to graduate. He wanted to make sure he was on track to walk at the December 2015 graduation ceremony.
"It still gives me goosebumps to talk about it," he said. "Their response was exactly what I wanted it to be. They said 'We are going to be there.' No matter how old you are, you still want your parents to be proud of you."
Wiggins was able to go back to college and earn a diploma, a process that took less than a year, because of MSU's relatively new Bachelor of General Studies interdisciplinary degree program.
The program only admits current or former students in good academic standing who have completed 75 or more college credits. The degree requires completion of coursework in two or three departments in place of one specific major.
In the first year of the program, there were 35 graduates. The 85 current students were admitted with an average GPA of 2.7 (on a 4.0 scale) and an average of 115 completed college credits.
The minimum number of credits for a bachelor's degree is 125.
"We want to help people finish college and achieve their goals," said Rachelle Darabi, who oversees the program. "It astounded us that there were a lot of students who walked away with 100 credits or more."
The university estimates 4,800 students have left MSU with 100 or more credits — but no degree — in the past 10 years.
Darabi said as the program grows, it will ramp up efforts to reach out to those adults. She wants to see more former students come back and cross the finish line.
"The joy you see with the graduates and their families, it literally makes you want to cry," she said. "You know you have changed the trajectory of their lives and maybe the trajectory of their family."
MSU is not the first to offer a general studies or interdisciplinary degree. The university borrowed "best practices" from models elsewhere and added a few requirements.
Darabi said the framework was driven by an MSU Board of Governors' directive that it not be a "watered-down" degree.
"It's a little stricter than a lot of models. They were very concerned about the integrity of the degree," she said. "This option is not the easiest route."
Amy Marie Aufdembrink, assistant director for interdisciplinary programs, meets with prospective students. They must fill out an application, meet GPA requirements, obtain a faculty or staff endorsement, go through a transcript audit and write an essay about their educational journey.
If admitted, she or another adviser will help the student come up with a plan to finish.
"This is a major for anybody. We see all types," she said. "Maybe they stopped for a while and they want to go back, they switched majors or maybe they went into the military."
Aufdembrink said there are students, like Wiggins, who only need one class to finish and others who need to go full time for several semesters. In a few rare cases, applicants had more than enough credits for the Bachelor of General Studies degree but didn't know until they applied.
Bethany Hornbeck, 23, transferred to MSU after completing an associate's degree at Ozarks Technical Community College. She took classes to become a teacher for the deaf and hard-of-hearing and then switched to psychology.
Hornbeck, who has hearing loss, started to experience seizures and several migraines. She said a brain tumor was discovered.
"I got sick and then had to withdraw from the college setting," she said.
When she felt well enough to return to MSU, she didn't want to complete either of the majors she had started. A faculty member suggested she look into the new Bachelor of General Studies degree.
She was accepted and discovered the interdisciplinary approach meant she could take classes that aligned with her new career goal of helping college students with disabilities better navigate campus life. She plans to graduate in May.
"What I thought would just get me done has become a dream," she said. "We were able to identify what classes I wanted to take for my career outcomes."
Wiggins, 59, said he first heard about the program from his wife. At the time, she was an MSU employee.
"She'd been encouraging me for the last few years to go in and get a degree audit," she said. "When I found out how close I was to finishing, I said, 'How could I not do it.'"
Around the same time, Wiggins, who originally majored in political science and urban and regional planning, applied to work on the business services team of the city's Missouri Career Center and Workforce Development division. The job required a bachelor's degree.
Wiggins said the city worked with him. He was hired as a contract employee with the understanding that if he obtained his degree, he'd go through the interview process to become a full-time, regular employee. He did that and now leads the business services team.
"It's put me in a supervisory position," he said. "Yes, it changed my pay grade."
Wiggins said the biggest payoff was sharing his graduation day with his wife, sons and his parents.
"At this stage in my life, I'm fortunate to be able to do this," he said. "To be able to go do that for myself and to show our boys — who are in middle school — that you can do this."
Want to know more?
For more information about Missouri State University's Bachelor of General Studies interdisciplinary degree program, contact Rachelle Darabi, associate provost for student development and public affairs at 417-836-8346.