When Jannine Jacoby sits down for the first day of class this fall, she’ll be starting the last year of her 31-year quest for a bachelor’s degree nearly 300 miles away from her school, the University of Virginia. But she’s not concerned.
Well, maybe a little.
“I’m going to start my capstone in the fall and, fingers crossed, I’ll finish in the spring,” Jacoby said from her basement office at her home in Myerstown, Pennsylvania, about 282 miles up Interstate 81. “I’m still a little worried, because there were so many points in time where I almost quit – actually right after my first semester, my second semester and my third semester – because I was convinced I was going to fail out of the program.”
Jacoby is a straight-A student in 鶹ƽ School of Continuing and Professional Studies Bachelor of Interdisciplinary Studies program, but anxiety is just a part of her life.
“I went to college back in ’95, and it did not go well for me,” she recalled. “My anxiety was so bad that I couldn’t force myself to leave my room to go to class on a lot of days.”
Jacoby, 49, grew up in a time when anxiety was misunderstood and not talked about.
“From the time I was a child, I only spoke if spoken to. I didn’t do well in a group of more than two. I was just so shy and anxious,” she said.
She dropped out of college, but not out of life. She’s married, has two children and a good job that allows her to attend her kids’ athletic events and activities. She attended community college off and on, but that bachelor’s degree still stalked her dreams.
“I always wanted to finish school,” Jacoby said. “All my friends have been to college – some have advanced degrees – and they would always say it’s such a shame I didn’t finish. I agreed, but I didn’t see a way to do it.”
In 2023, she decided the dream had waited long enough. Being a practical person, she shopped for college programs. She wanted a well-respected school and a degree with gravitas. One potential school refused her community college credits. The other was “considerably more expensive.”
“The choice was easy: UVA is a better school than the others, it’s cheaper, and they could accommodate an online schedule,” she said. “It was perfect. I thought, ‘OK, this is the time. Just do it.’ So I did it. I started in the fall of 2024.”
She excelled in her classes, but anxiety kept rearing its ugly head.
But the UVA professors couldn’t be more accommodating, nicer or more understanding. They really do care. It’s not just lip service on the website or in their marketing materials.
Each semester, I was like, ‘I’m going to fail next semester. I can’t do this anymore,’” she said. “But then I’d talk to my professors and my adviser. I think being honest and upfront about how I was feeling was crucial because they were so encouraging. I feel like they really want their students to succeed.”
After her third semester, Jacoby went all in. She took January term courses. She increased her course load, got involved in student activities, and even took AI certification courses through Google to work with a local Charlottesville business to create an AI-based marketing program.
“I decided, ‘What the heck? I’m just going to throw myself into everything.’ I was a representative on the University Judiciary Committee for a year, and I’m going to be a peer mentor for this year,” she said.
Being a mother, an employee and a student can be difficult, Jacoby admitted.
“It was a little tough sometimes, like when I would be in class while in the bleachers at high school soccer games with my laptop, and we’d have a breakout room for discussions,” she recalled. “I’d quick-like run off the bleachers and try to find somewhere quiet for a half hour, then run back up the bleachers. But it worked.”
Yes, she still worries, but she’s learned to work around it.
