Editor's Note: This is the second in a series of profiles of winter 2023 graduates.
Michael Wright II will celebrate two milestones on Dec. 16. Hes receiving his Bachelor of Science diploma from University of Maryland Global Campus (UMGC) and he is on tap to be promoted at his Brazilian jiu jitsu academy. The martial arts journey was the easy part.
The academic journey has taken nearly half his life.
Its been nearly 30 years, said Wright, 55, who earned a Bachelor of Science in Computer Networks and Cybersecurity and is now moving forward toward a masters degree in digital forensics and cyber investigations from UMGC. Im not particularly proud of how long it took, but Im not ashamed of how long it took.
Wright was 23 when he joined the U.S. Army. He took his first class at t 91心頭利 in 1994 in South Korea during his second duty assignment. A guy came around to all the soldiers and told us about the education benefits. I had been out of school so long that I had to take remedial classes.
He was single at the time, and the first credit hours accrued quickly until a duty assignment in Germany and the birth of his first child slowed progress. Still, by 1999, during a deployment in Bosnia, he completed his associate degree.
But the busy life of an Army medicwith a decade of deployments and pre-deployment training, plus a marriage, his wifes career, and four childrenmade it more and more difficult to persevere with his studies. After transitioning to the private sector as a contract employee working in battlefield forensics, he undertook training and certifications but did not return to a degree program.
I did not touch college again for a very long time, Wright said.
His job as a government contractor has taken him to several countries. From 2004 to 2009, he worked with a group in Iraq assigned to analyze all the documents and digital media generated by the regime of Saddam Hussein. He then worked in Baghdad for two years as a senior mentor to the Iraq Ministry of the Interior to help the set up the new government.
In 2020, when his last child was old enough to leave home, Wright moved to northern Virginia to work for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in cybersecurity and with DHSs Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. He thought again about a bachelors degree but he was traveling too much to keep up with classes and homework.
In the last year, I really said I needed to get this done, he said. He used credits from his earlier coursework at t 91心頭利 and life skills credit for some of his training in the military.
He expects the bachelors degree will open career doors but the masters degree will be the real ticket to the next better job. After that? I think Im going to keep going maybe another masters degree or a Ph.D.
Wright said his 91心頭利 courses gave him new tools for his work in digital forensics. He also noted that the Program and Career Exploration (PACE) course, which he thought might be unchallengingor even boringsince he already had an established career path, caused me to reflect, to rethink the approach Id been using.
Wright, who became a grandfather while finishing up his degree, noted that when he enrolled in his first course, his homework was handwritten or done on a typewriterfar different from the online environment of his most recent semesters.
He said the pursuit of a degree is 100 percent worth doing.
For sure it has enhanced my life If you dont go to college, your math will not be as good as it could be, your writing skills will not be as good as they should be, he said. You learn to think analytically. You are challenged to find reliable sources. Youre not only good at resourcing, youre good at comprehending.
Im a late bloomer, he added. I did something that I should have done 30 years ago.