Ijeoma Adams

I attribute my success to watching the struggles my family went through growing up. My parents and grandmother didn't even graduate from high school. My grandmother cleaned homes and only got $40 a day, working 3 days a week, but she paid her house off before she passed away. Me and my older sister had to sacrifice a lot of things for the younger siblings to have what they needed. Looking at all that, I was just like, you know what, we have to do better, I'm gonna do better. That's not something I wanted when I grew up - I didn't want that type of struggle, and I didn't want my children to have that type of struggle. So my goal and my focus was to push hard. I would even write my goals down, my 5-year goals, my 10-year goals. I had a journal, and each time I accomplished a goal, I would cross that goal out and replace it with another one. And right today, I'm 54, and I've accomplished all of those goals. Even now, at 54, I have goals still. I'm not where I was, and I'm not where I want to be, but I'm still pushing, and I'll get there. I was the first to graduate from high school in my family, and then the first to graduate with my bachelor's, and that was the highlight for the family. Then other members of my family started going back to school. My brother right now, he's 50, and he's in college getting his bachelor's degree right now.

The best career advice I ever received was to not give up and to touch it once. I had a mentor who told me anything I do, touch it once, which meant that you look at everything and do everything with a fine-tooth comb. That way, you don't have to keep taking steps back to go further forward, because that takes up too much time. It's like when you're buying something at the store - pick it up, look at it, make sure it's not broken, try it out, because once you purchase it, people may not accept exchanges. That's something that I've always taken with me in my work and my personal life - just touch it once.

I would tell them to not give up. Obstacles are gonna come face-to-face with any and everybody, but you just have to know how to overcome them. We never say it's gonna be easy, but we know that we can overcome it. Just keep pushing, because if that's your goal, focus on it. Keep pushing. Don't take no for an answer. When I was pursuing my bachelor's, I was married with 3 kids, working full-time, and the only person that stayed up at night with me was my daughter - she would sit on the floor with me with my books open, like 'okay, mama, I'm trying to stay up with you.' With all of that I had going on, I persevered because that's something that I wanted. When you truly want something, you're gonna go for it, no matter what. That's what I tell the students here when they come in and they miss an exam - just take a deep breath and take some steps back. It's not the end of the world. You can retake that class. Think about what you did that maybe caused you to miss that, and remember you've already taken the class, so you already know the material. Just because you missed something by one point and you have to take the class over again - okay, not the end of the world. Keep pushing. Keep going. That's just an obstacle that you can overcome. You have the opportunity to do it again. People don't even have the opportunity to do something.

The biggest challenge right now in my field is those that are trying, but they have those obstacles that they seem to them they can't overcome. That part gets emotional because you want to help them, and it's only so much you can do to help. Those moments where it's like, okay, they're here, this is what they want, and I know this is what they want, but they have those challenges that just can't be overcome. And that's very hurtful. When you're passionate about something and you're pouring out this passion, and you just put your head down and go, 'Lord, I want to help, but there's only so much I can do, and here's this obstacle that neither one of us can get over.' That's just sad. One of the things I always say when I'm watching the news, I'm like, they can come up with so much money to build all these parks and these different buildings and all these malls and stuff, but then have nothing when you have a citizen that's really, really trying to do something. There's no resources or no help.

Respect, ethics, and communication are most important to me - those three go together. Respect is really big, communication is big, and work ethics, just having ethics period. Respect is not given, it's earned. Whether I'm at work or out, it's just about being respectful. Even when I'm walking, getting out of my car, going into a store, there's nothing wrong with speaking and saying hello, how you doing, just waving, something like that. That's one of the things I share with students here - I tell them, you have a beautiful smile, share it. I say, because you never know what that one smile can do for a person, because you never know what a person is going through. Just being kind can change a person. When I get on the elevator and it's a bunch of people, I say good morning, even if nobody wants to talk. I don't care who it is, I'm still saying good morning. You get some people who say good morning back, and you get some people who go 'mmm,' but that's just me.