2021 is shaping to be a very good year for the Borne family.
As I am coming up on my last 6 weeks in my software engineering program, I wanted to reflect on my journey to obtain this degree, and all that I had to endure to accomplish this goal.
I started my college journey at Tarrant County College in the fall of 2010. I had saved up a good amount of money to cover my tuition for probably a few years, but I was yearning to go to a 4 year university. After my first semester at TCC, I found out that I was accepted into the University of North Texas, and registered to go there in the spring of 2011. Kyle and I got married on January 8th, 2011, right before the semester was to start. We travelled to Utah for our honeymoon, and came back a few days before the semester was to start. I was very excited for this new chapter in my life: A newly married woman with life at her fingertips.
I did well in my classes and met new friends that I'm still in touch with today. My major was Child Development. I worked for an afterschool program at the time, and it seemed like a good fit. As newlyweds, life had its challenges. Balancing full time school and work while also adjusting to married life, while also having to overcome other challenges, we felt that it was difficult to thrive as a new family in our current situation, and felt that changes needed to be made. We made the decision to move to Utah at the end of the semester. It was exciting and terrifying all at the same time, but it felt like the right decision. As we packed up our tiny apartment and everything I knew, we headed west to start the next chapter of our lives.
We ended up moving several more times (a story that really isn't worth diving into for this particular post) and settled back in Utah again.
The next phase of my college journey began at Utah Valley University. I was enrolled in the Gaming and Animation Program there. I loved every minute of it and felt like I finally found my niche. In Utah, Kyle and I grew so much as a couple and were able to establish our own life for ourselves. We were in a wonderful married student ward with a wonderful bishop and made some life long friends. We also learned a lot about the LDS culture in Utah, something that we were both unfamiliar with. Being LDS outside of Utah versus living in Utah are two very different experiences. We grew and learned so much there, for better and for worse. I owe those two years to building a solid foundation for my marriage, and I learned so much about myself, and who I wanted to be. We got to know each other as husband and wife without any interruptions, and that helped pave the way for the marriage we have today. Kyle graduated with his Bachelors in Communication Studies with an emphasis in Public Relations, and I graduated with my Associates Degree with an emphasis of Gaming and Animation.
We decided to move back to Texas in May of 2014. We missed our families and missed our home state. Kyle got a job in Houston with Avis Budget Group at IAH Airport. I knew I needed to finish my degree, but just wasn't sure how to do that. I went back and forth on enrolling in the University of Houston, but something just didn't feel right to me. I didn't want to go into any more debt, and I also had a feeling that we weren't going to stay there long enough for me to finish.
Kyle told me about the church's new pathway program to do BYU-Idaho online. I looked into it, and saw the degree options, and I knew that the Software Engineering program was the one for me. The church makes you take a year of classes to prepare you for the program, and honestly I had to take a slice of humble pie while taking these courses. The courses were designed for people that were new to college or for people that hadn't gone in a long time, and I didn't fit either criteria. I knew though, that this was something I needed to do and just bear through it to get to the place I needed to be. I grew so much in those two semesters, and learning from others around me. The missionaries in charge of the program were amazing people that have affected me to this day. I'm grateful for their service to the program and grateful for their presence in my life at that time. After a year of taking these courses, I graduated the program, and was able to start the software engineering program. As soon as I finished the pathway program, we found out that we were leaving the Houston area, and moving to Graham, Texas.
I started the software engineering program in January of 2016. Life was good. We were living in a great town, loved our church ward, loved our experiences of travelling together for Kyle's job covering Graham sports. Starting this program was a nice dose of reality, though. It was really hard and rigorous. Most people in the program had experience programming to some degree, I had none. There was a huge learning curve for me, and I doubted myself 1,000 times, over and over again.
After the first two semesters, Kyle and I went on vacation to Washington D.C. We had a lot of fun exploring that part of the country, new for both of us. The very last day there, we received a phone call from Kyle's Mom stating that his Dad had a stroke. We didn't know any details, but we assumed that everything would be ok, as this wasn't the first time receiving this news.
When we got back, we learned the severity of his Dad's condition, being much worse than we could have imagined. We were driving an hour and a half each way, twice a week (sometimes more) from Graham to help take care of him and get him the help that he needed. Kyle is an only child, so we were all they had. In the middle of all of this, I started a new semester with a full class load. I felt like I could balance it all. After about a month of going back and forth between Graham and Fort Worth, Kyle and I came to the conclusion that we needed to move closer to home to help with this situation. A week later, he got the Sports Editor job at the Weatherford Democrat.
We moved from Graham in August of 2016, into Kyle's parent's house to aid their current situation. We took him to rehab 5 days a week, I helped him get dressed and made sure he was ready to go for his rehabilitation. Kyle helped too, while balancing work. His Dad couldn't walk, and it was looking like that would be the case permanently. We were his caretakers, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It started to wear on us, to where my school and mental health was suffering, and I ended up dropping my classes that semester and the following one because I just couldn't balance it all. It was a very hard year for us, and I felt like I was failing in all aspects of my life.
After a series of multiple failed attempts of trying to get him into a nursing home, and trying to understand the process in our early twenties, school started to become difficult to balance while life was chaotic and hard to endure. I withdrew that semester. I felt low and hopeless. It was one of the lowest points I have been in, in my entire life. In August of 2017, a full year of this hardship, I found out that I was finally pregnant after 4 years of trying. That moment gave me the endurance to push out of this situation, and get life back on track after such a hard year. We finally got him in a nursing home where he will be taken care of, (after going round and round with inept nursing home staff, Medicaid staff, and eventually suing the state, another story for another time) Kyle switched careers from journalism to education, and we got our own place in February of 2018, and school was back on track.
Motherhood gave me an indescribable strength I never knew I had. Although balancing school and motherhood was challenging, I pushed forward, one class at a time, making sure that I could balance the demands of motherhood and the demands of the classes I was taking. It's difficult, but doable.
While I was pregnant with Oliver, we found out we had to move again, less than a year after we moved in, due to circumstances that were outside of our control. All within a month, I gave birth to Oliver, finished my semester, and moved. 2019 was another very difficult year.
Fast forward to today, June 2021. I look back on all those circumstances, and I see the Lords hand in all of it. I always knew it was something I had to complete. I wanted options, a way to support my family if circumstances were suddenly changed. But most importantly, I needed to do this for me.
Through my own experiences, I can teach my kids how to endure. I can teach them resiliency, and to stay close to the Lord all throughout life. I can teach them that no matter what happens in life, that you are responsible for making things happen for yourself, that you can't expect others to do it for you.
I couldn't have done this without the foundation my parents set for me, drilling it into all of our heads that education is important, and that we could do whatever we set our minds to. I had amazing examples of resiliency in my parents, and I am forever indebted to them.
I also couldn't have done this without my husbands support and reassurance that I could do this. There have been many times, too many to count, where I was in tears believing that I can't. His love and support was everything to me, and I couldn't have done it without him.
My babies were my final push to get this done. I want to show them that with hard work, dedication, sacrifice, you can truly do anything.
~Katie B.
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