For Students, Day to Celebrate

Two years ago, Debi Peters and her four children were living in shelters for battered women and the homeless.

Peters had no income and no family nearby. Her car had been repossessed.

Grappling to build a better future, the divorced mother decided to take another crack at college, something she had tried and failed at nearly two decades earlier. She enrolled at Ventura College and things came together quickly. She moved into subsidized housing, picked up three part-time jobs and worked her way off welfare.

On Thursday afternoon, the 38-year-old Peters savored her accomplishments--including a 3.17 grade-point average--as one of 350 graduates participating in commencement exercises at Ventura College.

While other graduates’ families and friends clutched bouquets, snapped photos and hooted out names, Peters contemplated her next set of goals: gaining acceptance to a four-year university and becoming a social worker, to help women in situations like the one from which she emerged.

“I feel like I’ve been through so many hard things I can really relate to people,” she said. “When I was going through hard times it was really hard to sit across from and talk to a social worker who had on a diamond ring.”

Later Thursday, 300 students graduated in a ceremony at Moorpark College. They were part of a combined 1,800 students who received degrees at Moorpark and Ventura colleges this month.

Each graduate had his or her own story of goals and successes.

There was business student Eric Huambachano, 20, associated student president and recipient of the college President’s Award for scholarship and service. He hopes to attend USC in the fall to continue his business studies.

College spokeswoman Jeanne Bailey said Huambachano spent the day before graduation working an eight-hour shift at Bank of America, performing in a student dance recital and finally sitting down at home around midnight to draft the commencement speech he would deliver hours later.

“He’s doing it all,” Bailey said. “The job. A full student load. He’s a leader and just a really compassionate human being.”

Lindsay Wygant’s college experience was different, but her graduation no less a milestone. A learning disability had impaired her ability to excel in high school. She had no clear career ambition and was so shy she found it difficult to make many friends. Nonetheless, she set her sights on college and all it had to offer academically and socially.

Getting a two-year degree took Wygant four years, but the end result was what mattered to her.

She applied herself in classes from math to child psychology to broadcasting, finding support through the campus disabled students program and through her mother, Grethe, who teaches mathematics and coordinates honors programs at the college.

She built up her self-confidence through a job at the student bookstore, making friends with an ease she had not known before.

“That was fun,” she said. “It’s the thing I’m going to miss the most.”

Wygant’s grade-point average at graduation was 3.25, which allowed her to graduate as a member of an honors service organization.

“Trying to study for tests was the hardest part,” Wygant recalled hours before graduation. “But I liked math the best, which surprised me. This time, I think I actually worked harder at math than in high school.”

She still doesn’t know what she will do for a living, but she feels there is plenty of time to figure that out. She and her mom are headed to Norway for the summer to see relatives. She will ponder her next step when they return.

“I’m so proud of her,” Grethe Wygant said. “It was really hard for her, but I’ve seen this tremendous growth. It gave her such preparation for life.”