When Jeanette Whitehead moved from Pensacola, Fla., to Northern Virginia five years ago, she wasn’t anticipating a major career shift, too. Trained as a nail technician in Florida, she found it difficult to break into the industry in Virginia, which requires significantly more training hours for license reciprocity. Faced with the prospect of additional training for a job she’d already mastered, Whitehead decided to return to school.
Whitehead knew she wanted her next career move to more directly impact people’s lives. “I LOVE education,” she shared. “And I’m really good at it…. I have a knack for getting people to come out of their shell.” Whitehead thought a biology degree from NOVA would be a great starting point, given her interest in human physiology and passion for people. The math requirement was a challenge, though, and she found it especially difficult to concentrate in in-person classes on campus.
For some students like Whitehead, learning in a traditional classroom setting can be overstimulating to the point of distraction. When classes went online during COVID, Whitehead’s grades improved, and she found the confidence to change her major to English. “I kind of slipped into my passion again,” she said of finding her niche with NOVA Online.
As for her relationships and sense of belonging at NOVA, Whitehead completely disagrees with the preconceived notion that online learning doesn’t foster community. She regularly attends virtual events, where she meets other like-minded students who are juggling their education with the demands of family and work. She also finds that, perhaps counterintuitively, “[online] discussion is actually very robust — and you never interrupt people!”
Today, Whitehead has one semester left before she plans to transfer to George Mason University. Eventually she’d like to teach AP English literature; but for right now, she says, “I’m in my element.”