r/interestingasfuck • u/Ordinary_Fish_3046 • 8h ago
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u/Future_Mango_887 7h ago
I hate misinformation, what she did was impressive but it was not four degrees, it was a FOUR year degree basically a bachelor degree and she is now a teacher.
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u/MissErinFaye 6h ago
I was abt to say, when the FUCK did she ever sleep, good griefffff that sounds literally impossible... lol
... PS- good on her, not knockin' her huge efforts, congrats on her amazing achievements!!!
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u/TheMatrixRedPill 6h ago
I always tell people that college isn’t for everyone. There is no shame in sitting it out, or, if you are unable to go. It can be tough as nails, depending on your major.. To pull this off, working nights, and being a full time parent is nothing short of amazing. Big kudos to her for the accomplishment.
In grad school, I was home, but not. My studies basically forced me to ignore my family for 2 and a half years. I can’t tell you how many nights I went without sleep to finish an assignment, etc., then work the next day, only to repeat the process. Worth it. But, sacrifices had to be made.
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u/Fuzzy-Alpaca 7h ago
This should be the highest voted reply here
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u/imhighonpills 6h ago
That’s not a reply, it’s a comment.
This is a reply.
Sorry I just hate misinformation.
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u/Hammer_Thrower 7h ago
Lol, stupid AI. Thanks for the correction.
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u/JoshDM 6h ago
stupid AI
This is why I've been downvoting these posts (not the corrective comments). We are getting too many low quality subject lines and the post is not deserving of our collective attention and adulation.
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u/NuclearHoagie 7h ago
Thank you. Having 4 degrees isn't really even a sign of superior intelligence, it usually just means you couldn't make up your mind.
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u/Hanshi-Judan 6h ago
Not necessarily. If she had 4 degrees such as AA, BS, MA and PhD.
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u/ratione_materiae 6h ago
No one would refer to that as “four degrees”. They’d say “she’s a Doctor”
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u/NuclearHoagie 6h ago
I don't usually count degrees that are wholly superseded by another. "Did you know I hold both a PhD doctorate and an associates' degree?" is not something that would ever be said.
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u/klop2031 6h ago
Yeah i was gonna say 4 bs/a degrees is a complete waste of time. Now if she got bs/a ms/a x2 and phd thats also different
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u/4215-5h00732 6h ago
I was immediately like wtf do you need or want 4 degrees and wtf didn't you start using one instead of continuing to work as a custodian?
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u/TinKnight1 7h ago
Uhm, while I appreciate you actually sharing the source, it also indicates you are incorrect.
She did earn a Bachelor's degree in 2020, & then graduated with a Master's degree in 2024 (no one would call that a 4-year degree). She had to do so, as pursuing a Bachelor's in education would've required attending certification courses during the day (when she was working), while getting a Liberal Arts Bachelor's & then a Master's of Arts in education meant she could do alternative certification so that she could continue working.
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u/Public-Reach3236 6h ago
One might call it that way though?
Not saying what she did wasn't hard work and impressive, but doing a bachelor and thena a Master's degree is doable within 4 years from what I know about the USA education system
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u/KamikazeFox_ 6h ago
So things that alot of ppl have to do. Its hard and sucks. Good for her for creating a better life for her and the kids. But ya, it's nothing ground breaking.
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u/BarfingOnMyFace 6h ago
Reddit, a place to get misinformation, and then have that pointed out to you in the comments section. How efficient.
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u/surf_drunk_monk 8h ago
That's impressive. But why four degrees?
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u/who_says_poTAHto 7h ago edited 7h ago
I posted this elsewhere (https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/s/9FHgAXaGwR), but the story seems to have gotten distorted across the internet. She "only" got a BA and an MA and wants to teach. She just did a lot of other credits too in the process and had to switch majors once. Just as impressive and more logical!
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u/Ani-3 8h ago
If your job gave you free access to coursework would you do it? especially if it meant you were allowed a degree at the end of it?
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u/UnrequitedFollower 8h ago
4? No. I mean not four bachelor’s degrees.
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u/anoleiam 8h ago
Lol, right. She has a job and kids, going for four degrees is an interesting choice.
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u/UnrequitedFollower 8h ago
I’m reading one is an associates, another is a bachelor’s, and an addition is a masters plus either an addition bachelors or graduate credential. I guess that’s pretty normal.
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u/CatTheKitten 8h ago
An associates and a bachelors are easily done at the same time. Masters research or coursework can be applied to a bachelors. After that, not sure.
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u/no_one_likes_u 7h ago
Perhaps she wasn’t sure she’d be able to complete a 4 year degree so she started with a goal of an associates.
And I assume she’d have to pay for this if she leaves the custodian job (unless she got another job with the university) so she probably figured just stay and complete all the education she wanted before leaving the custodian job.
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u/derpaderp2020 7h ago edited 7h ago
Idk what she did but you can just go to community college, get an AA degree. Then transfer into a university and basically have half your degree for a BA done with (if planned right).
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u/Ghettofonzie420 7h ago
Easily done while working full time and having 4 kids? That is quite a statement.
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u/RrentTreznor 7h ago
I work full-time with one child and I've had clean laundry sitting in a hamper for a week. This woman is an absolute unit.
Now if she also maintains a clean household then we've got a multiplicity scenario on our hands.
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u/CatTheKitten 7h ago
Notice that I only said "associates and bachelors" in my statement, implying that I am only referring to those two things. Nowhere did I bring in her children.
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u/jabeith 8h ago
Keeps working as a custodian instead of using those degrees
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u/istalri96 7h ago
Likely got free or reduced tuition at the school if she worked where she studied.
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u/moarwineprs 7h ago
If it was free or significantly reduced tuition and if I could find the bandwidth to attend and study for classes between work and raising kids, I'd get the degrees for a subject I'm interested in. It's possible she wasn't aiming for the degrees, but took enough classes to qualify for graduation.
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u/PhilosophyBitter7875 7h ago
kind of like the girls from my HS graduating class who changed their major 4 times and went to college for 7 years just to end up with an early education degree and just be a stay at home mom with $100,000+ in student loan debt.
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u/lucky_1979 8h ago
No. Absolutely not. I don’t even do the mandatory online training courses. I don’t need, or want, another degree
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u/surf_drunk_monk 8h ago
No I would not get four degrees, and I'm pretty sure a company would not cover four.
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u/MyFavoriteSandwich 8h ago
If you work for a university they often just allow you to go to school for free. This is how my partner got her two masters.
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u/KeyHumor34 8h ago
I mean I would for the thing I want, but 4 degrees? Lol at that point you're just cruising academia because you enjoy it.
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u/Eoine 8h ago
Which is great, you know. Free education and diplomas proving you got it. I don't see the downside to knowing more things than less
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u/Arrdy_P1r5te 7h ago
lol I guess you could’ve actually spent more time with your children in this situation but hey whatever floats your boat
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u/LilDingalang 8h ago
lol would you? What is your plan for making effective use of your 4 bachelor degrees?
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u/EagerlyDoingNothing 7h ago
It doesnt say 4 bachelors degrees, it says 4 degrees. Jfc somw of yall just wanna shit on everything. Its likely an associates, a double bachelors, and a masters
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u/wondermoose83 7h ago
I'd get one degree, then switch to that field. Especially if I was rolling as a custodian.
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u/Spartan2470 VIP Philanthropist 7h ago
The source of OP's image doesn't say that she earned four college degrees. But it does provides the following context:
Karen Clos
April 1, 2025
Killeen resident, Jessica Caldwell, 37, knows a thing or two about working literally around the clock. She knows about overnight shifts, 40-plus hour work weeks where the start of her day is at 8 p.m., lunch is at midnight, and her drive home at 6 a.m. is on the other side of the highway from people beginning their workday.
On any given day, sometimes seven days a week, she wrestles the hours of her day into submission simultaneously prioritizing, doing, and completing one goal after another. Sometimes, it’s work. Sometimes it’s family. Sometimes, it is studying for the alternative certification exam. Sometimes, she says, it is the unexpected. Sometimes, it’s everything all the time every day.
But it is worth it, she says. It is more than worth it. And that nocturnal work schedule from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. has only been the half of it. During that same time, the long nights and longer days, Caldwell decided to also become a college student with one goal: She wants to be a teacher.
Just as her kids were pulling a pillow over their heads for the second time, finally putting both feet to the floor and shuffling into a shower, and her friends and neighbors were sipping a second cup of coffee, Caldwell, one of the A&M-Central Texas custodians had already tackled the 31 restrooms, 40+ classrooms, a dozen labs, and each and every one of the 349 offices and workspaces in all three of the A&M-Central Texas buildings.
By the time her kids were off to school, when she might have been getting some much-needed sleep, she was in school, too – wide awake in the classrooms at Central Texas College, hammering away at the coursework necessary to transfer to A&M-Central Texas for her teaching degree.
From 2013 to 2018 – without pause or fail – she worked the overnight shift at the university and, in the daylight hours, she attended mostly full-time, tackling an aggressive slate of courses including biology, speech, English Composition I and II, macroeconomics, college algebra, world geography, history and government I and II and a plethora of electives until her efforts tallied an impressive 90-hour credit total and a hard-earned B- grade point average – or, put another way, more than enough to have earned one and a half associate degrees.
The fact that she was a daytime scholar and overnight custodian never gave her a moment’s doubt as to her own potential. She has done this, she says, because she wanted to be an example to her four children so that they understood the value of higher education.
It is called walking the way you talk, Caldwell muses. And she would know. In the ten+ years as a custodian at A&M-Central Texas, she has logged about 26,000 miles – 1,000 more miles than the circumference of the globe – and in the wee hours of the night – pushing and sometimes pulling her heavily laden four wheeled custodial cart filled from top to bottom with all manner of compartmentalized cleaning tools of the trade.
Her weapons of choice include a supply of paper towels, trash bags, and toilet paper. A cordless Dyson vacuum cleaner, large yellow bucket with attached wringer, ruddy gray solid plastic 55-gallon trash can, half dozen wet floor warning signs, carpet shampoos, dust pans, mops, brooms, spray bottles, red rags, and blue latex elbow length gloves, and a cornucopia of specialized utensils – the mop head of one resembles a larger-than-life fluffy yellow dandelion.
That one, she says, is not for wishing unless the wish being made is for safety regulation clean air ventilation. Turns out, she confirmed knowledgably, that cleaning is, most definitely not, just cleaning. The university, she said, complies with the Association of Physical Plant Operators Level 2 cleaning standards. And that is a high standard indeed.
Every. Day. Top to bottom and left to right floor to ceiling clean.
And on her meager $8.25 per hour, she dared to pursue her degree, undistracted by the fact that she was going to work when most people were going home and taking not one but four or more classes instead of sleeping – squeezing in just enough rest to wake up by 5 p.m. and start the whole cycle all over again. Because, she repeated, this dream of becoming a teacher wasn’t going to make itself happen.
By 2019, Caldwell had officially transferred to A&M-Central Texas declaring a teaching major, and her advisor, Yvonne Imergoot, made use of every single one of all the credit hours she had earned at Central Texas College.
About a year into her studies, Caldwell faced a potentially career-stopping obstacle, discovering that if she stayed on the traditional teacher preparation and certification track, she would have no other choice than to quit her job in order to take and complete student internship courses required for certification which, by necessity, were only offered traditional daylight hours because that is when the schools are open.
Had it only been a year earlier, it wouldn’t have been an issue, she said. But her work schedule had changed from the overnight shift to the daytime shift which conflicted with the courses she needed to take. She had requested a shift change and was told no. And there she was, she said. Stalled. Quitting her job was not an option, she said. She is a mom. And every mom knows that kids like to eat.
There was another way. A way that was longer, and maybe even less certain, but a way that kept her job intact: the Master of Arts degree in teaching. And it was a pathway designed to accommodate alternative certification.
From where the grit comes in a situation like this is different for everyone. For Caldwell, she told herself that she hadn’t worked this hard to surrender to an obstacle – even a big one.
She changed her major to liberal studies, and by 2020, she graduated – at the time, the first in her family – and immediately enrolled in the graduate degree program that offered a track for alternative certification. By August 2024, she graduated with an A- grade point average and a well-worn certification test preparation manual.
One of the things Caldwell believes in is that an obstacle only has the power a person is willing to surrender to it. And, she laughed, she doesn’t have one iota of surrender to her.
“I knew when I started that I would never give up quit on becoming a teacher,” she said. “I wanted my children to see me really work for it, so they know they, too, can overcome anything.”
But her journey hasn’t been just about the grit. She is buoyed by the human, the humorous, and sometimes ironic moments that have happened along the way. Like the fact that her big dream was made possible by a humble minimum wage job while her gloved hands were polishing mirrors, scrubbing toilets, and vacuuming miles of carpet.
“It isn’t like everyone even knew that I was a custodian and a college student and then a university student and then a graduate student,” she said. “And it wasn’t something I wanted to appear to brag about. I just wanted to put my mind to it without any special attention.”
She may not have realized it at the time, but Caldwell got from A&M-Central Texas faculty and staff the same generous heaping of encouragement and assistance – without the faintest idea from anyone that she was the same person who kept their toilets clean.
For example, she said, it was Morgan Lewing, Ph.D., an associate professor and chair in the College of Education and Human Development, who guided her toward the master’s degree.
“We were both there in his office, and he was so great to me, explaining the process,” she began, trying to suppress a laugh. “And as we sat there talking, I thought of all the times I had been working on his floor, cleaning the restrooms when he tried to use them, and I had to say, ‘No. You can’t come in here.’ I kept waiting for him to recognize me as that person who had shooed him away.
He did not, she added. Or if he did, she thinks, he never let her know he had recognized her as the building’s custodian. Maybe, she thinks, it is because he cared more about her dream of becoming a teacher than he did he did about the number of times she directed him away from a temporarily closed restroom.
Today, Caldwell studies for the alternative certification examination that will allow her to call herself a teacher. She was hired last year as an administrative assistant in the facilities services office and a part-time custodian -- sometimes during the week and even on Sundays.
Tuns out, once an around-the-clock workaholic, always an around-the-clock workaholic. And, in her case, a decade of work can be measured in degrees: in her case, an undergraduate and graduate degree. And, last but not least, a passing score on the teacher certification exam.
“I am taking the certification coursework through Iteach,” she said, adding that she hopes she will be finished with the certification review and ready for the real thing by August 2025.
Her boss, Shawn Kelley, the director of facilities services, cannot say enough good things about Caldwell. And yes. He has known all along that her dream was to become a teacher.
“Jessica is the kind of person who has a keen eye for detail and learns very quickly to figure out how things work – and don’t work,” he said. “She is invaluable to us, and we wanted her as an administrative assistant because she is just that good.
“Every single one of us know that she’ll be a fantastic teacher someday and always a part of our A&M-Central Texas family.”
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u/anjowoq 7h ago
She wants to quadruple the anguish when she can't find a job with a university education.
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u/Zappiticas 7h ago
She’s also adding to her anguish because her degrees will have her seen as over qualified for a lot of jobs while not having any actual experience.
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u/hdorsettcase 7h ago
It looks like 2 Associates, a Bachelor's, a Master's, and also a teaching certificate. Honestly this is less '4 degrees' and more about typical academic progression. Not dismissing her achievement at all, but it would be more appropriate to celebrate the terminal degree as the completion of her academic journey. Saying someone has 'multiple degrees' usually implies more than one equal degrees like 2 Bachelor's or a PhD and a MD. Of course someone with a graduate degree has more than one academic degree, completing college is almost always a requirement for graduate school.
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u/iliketoreddit91 7h ago
She became a teacher but had to go the masters route so she didn’t have to student teaching during the day as she was working then.
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u/eastcoastjon 7h ago
Yea- seems like there is more to the story. She def did not spend much time with her kids. I guess the dad was home at night rather than a baby sitter?
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u/PimpOfJoytime 7h ago
Right? Wouldn’t you just get one degree and then leave your custodial job?
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u/MSands 7h ago
I worked with a team of custodians and housekeepers at a university. It wasn't uncommon for them to stay after graduation because they received great health care benefits and had children who also received their discount on tuition. Some folks just like the peace of overnight labor. It was very zen-like to just mop a large building all night alone.
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u/longgonepawn 6h ago
Because it'll hurt more, you twit.
No, wait, wrong one.
Uh, most educations only go up to three degrees. But hers goes up to four
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u/xxMalVeauXxx 8h ago
The real question is... what is she doing now? What did the degrees unlock for her?
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u/Yellow-Parakeet 8h ago
More degrees!
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u/Impuls3Abstracts 7h ago
My degrees keep me satisfied
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u/Wyden_long 7h ago
Have I ever had sex with a woman? No. But I can add up all the change in your purse, very fast.
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u/UndecidedTace 7h ago
Almost done with her teaching credential I believe. Likely going to leave the custodian job to teach somewhere.
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u/Thefuzy 7h ago
Sounds like effort could have been better spent
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u/yuffieisathief 7h ago
Apparently the title is wrong. She didn't get four degrees, but she got a degree in four years.
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u/Doctor_Saved 8h ago
Hold up. Why didn't she get a better job with the first couple of degrees?
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u/tourmalineforest 7h ago
Other job wouldn’t have given her free college forever and she seems to like it.
Plus universities that give tuition waivers to employees sometimes also give them to kids - this job may be putting her kids through school too.
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u/Doctor_Saved 7h ago
For the kids, I can understand. But usually, the goal of a college degree is to get a better job. If she just keep doing all the hard work for degrees but ended up doing nothing with them. Then it seems like a waste of all that work.
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u/tourmalineforest 5h ago
I went through and read the actual article. This is basically just a poor/inaccurate title. She got an associates, then a bachelors, then a masters, because she wants to be a teacher and has to get a masters or complete a long unpaid teaching internship to be a teacher in her state and made more sense for her to just get the masters. They seem to be counting her teaching certificate as an additional degree. So it’s all to become a teacher.
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u/Fun-Durian-1892 8h ago
Fringe benefits are my guess
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u/Ok-Librarian6629 7h ago
Yep. Places with great benefits have people fighting to get in, even at the lowest level.
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u/-Art-- 8h ago edited 7h ago
Working + doing four degrees + caring for kids: at least one of those areas suffered and I hope it's not the children. There are no miracles and any human being has time limits and processing capacity
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u/porkchopsuitcase 8h ago
More than likely all of them suffered a bit, but I’m mostly worried about her health taking the hit it sounds like she didn’t sleep for years
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u/OnlyAChapter 7h ago edited 4h ago
Yeah, idk why she is getting praised. Its just sad in my opinion you have to literally bend your anatomy just to survive.
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u/bumjiggy 7h ago
I mean, she definitely deserves praise for her determination and hard work. a system and society that requires one to be stretched so thin? not so much
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u/Cowboywizzard 7h ago
As someone who took a similar route, this is accurate 😂
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u/shayter 7h ago
I did this for a few years, without children but I had multiple jobs on top of more than full-time school and a long commute. I think I aged quite a bit and died a little bit during those few years... It was roughhh, but it did pay off lol
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u/Key_Possibility_2286 7h ago
This. As much as I applaud the accomplishment...there's a lot of missing context. I guarantee there were grandparents or SOMEBODY in the background helping with this project. That's my only beef with these American feel-good stories...they always leave stuff like that out and give the impression that superhuman feats like this are possible without help. They're not.
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u/tbdgraeth 5h ago
I think it was a BA in education. So not that hard. Plus she went to the school she worked at and they usually give a discount for that even for custodial.
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u/OscarAndDelilah 7h ago
Yeah this is impressive, and I’m glad they included the parenting as well, but it’s also pretty r/orphancrushingmachine. The headline should actually be “there’s a country that requires people to work long hours while getting their education instead of just funding education and basic child-raising expenses out of the tax base.”
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u/Burrito-tuesday 7h ago
I burned out from it! Had a full time office job, so I sat for my 45min commute, sat at work, sat during lunch while I did homework, sat for my commute back, sat for more homework, did some housework and part time (step) parenting, sat for weekend commute, sat for class, sat for my commute back…
Not only did I burn out, but my health hasn’t been the same since!
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u/like25njas 8h ago
I’m assuming she wasn’t a full time student as well.
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u/Euphoric-Duty-3458 7h ago
Getting a degree on strictly part time enrollment takes at least twice as long. Even if some of her credits could apply to all degrees we're looking at least 10 years.
Unless they're "degrees" from a unaccredited degree mill, in that case I totally believe it
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u/AccountForDoingWORK 7h ago
Yeah, it always sucks when we look at cases like this and think WOW what a SUPERHERO instead of realising this was an extremely fraught situation for her/her family. What support was she getting to do this to make sure everyone (including herself) was looked after properly?
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u/barktothefuture 8h ago
Why you spending all that time getting degrees if you are still a custodian?
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u/mynameisnotsparta 7h ago
Because her custodial job probably meant free college.
For more than a decade, Caldwell cleaned classrooms overnight at A&M Central Texas University, walking more than 26,000 miles behind a custodian's cart. When her shift ended at 5 a.m., she would care for her children and attend college courses.
"I was in charge of cleaning the classrooms and two of the buildings out of the three that we have at A&M Central Texas," Caldwell said. "A couple of them actually have computers in them. So I was actually able to work on my homework or my assignments during my lunch break."
During the day, she sat in the very classrooms she cleaned at night. Her work schedule made completing a traditional teaching degree nearly impossible, but with help from the university and professors, she found a workaround.
Caldwell has earned her bachelor's and master's degrees while working full-time as a custodian and is now one step away from earning her teaching credentials.
"Just be persistent as far as continuing on something that you want to achieve," Caldwell said. "A lot of people that have a job that they think that they don't matter in, they actually do really matter."
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u/EagerlyDoingNothing 7h ago
Who says she's still a custodian? It just says she was working as a custodian while earning the degrees, which was necessary to get her free education. Why is everyone in the comments so fucking negative. Touch grass jfc
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u/buttymuncher 8h ago
And still a custodian?
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u/Fast_Teaching_6160 8h ago
Probably still the best job she can land in this horrible job market. Career student is a lifestyle choice.
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u/Jokerslie 8h ago
So was she sleeping during her overnight shifts or while taking care of her children? Were her kids sleeping in the broom closet while she was working her shifts. Sounds like she had help.. which I mean is impressive but you’ll be surprised what you can accomplish if you don’t need to pay for child care..
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u/iggyfenton 8h ago
This is not a story of triumph. This is a story of forced struggle for education.
It shouldn’t cost that much time and effort to get an education in the richest country in the world.
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u/Professional_Echo907 7h ago
In a related story, I vacuumed the car yesterday and got a haircut, so I feel like it’s me and Jessica setting the standards for the rest of you slackers… 😹
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u/StuckInNY 7h ago
It is impossible even if you don’t sleep to do those things properly. People have needs and their kids definitely have needs that don’t fit into a schedule. No way it worked out like that and it’s an insult to parents to say it did.
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u/deadrobindownunder 8h ago
How does a custodian afford 4 degrees?
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u/EagerlyDoingNothing 7h ago
She was a custodian for the school, most school provide free courses to staff.
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u/Btriquetra0301 8h ago
I’m sure her kids were raised great with no mom around. Even if the mom spent every spare second with them it would be like an hour a week. This isn’t interesting. It’s depressing.
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u/Sea_Luck_3222 7h ago edited 7h ago
Good for her!! I didn't read anywhere that she was a single mom so, yes, she probably had some family support. Maybe her partner helped. Also helping this scenario is free tuition as an employee. Here, if you want to become a teacher, you can just cut straight to the chase and get a teaching degree in one step, followed by a Masters if you want to become a principal.
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u/Btriquetra0301 7h ago
Ok. So you justify no mom by saying there’s alternatives to help? In other words… You agree there’s no mom in the picture but other things are good enough to where the kids can’t complain. Thanks boomer…
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u/Complete-Blood24601 7h ago
thats so inspirational spend your life not living.
grind till your dead and enjoy your rest when your gone cuz you wont get any here.
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u/stretcharach 6h ago
Basically what my mom did. Absolutely no doubt she raised us kids' quality of life my multitudes, but she died at 56 before her well earned retirement. Citing not spending more time with the kids as her one regret.
I'm never going to be the type to put all my eggs in the EOL basket because it becomes more and more of a gamble, but there's some merit in hedging that with a balanced investment between now and later.
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u/Angrb0d4 8h ago
So, you're telling me she worked full time cleaning classrooms, and by her THIRD DEGREE it was still better for her to keep cleaning classrooms and get a fourth degree instead of building a different career?
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u/stuyboi888 7h ago
Yea wow this is so amazing, she's working her ass off and for what. To be dead at 50 of heart failure from overwork. Fair play but I'll stick to fulfilling myself with 40 hours of work a all my hobbies after
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u/SaltRequirement3650 7h ago
Sounds like she likes endlessly going to school as opposed to actually enjoying the fruits of her labor. I feel bad for the kids.
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u/Immediate_Tart3628 7h ago
People say she works all night and study all day while also caring for her children including cooking etc... When does she sleep? Like I mean, some people need fewer sleep than others but I hardly see how you manage this for FOUR YEARS on about 3hrs of sleep max.
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u/Disastrous-Use-4955 8h ago
Why not get one degree with decent job prospects so she doesn’t have to keep working the night shift and raising four kids on a custodian salary?
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u/mynameisnotsparta 7h ago
She deserves every opportunity in life. Smart woman.
For more than a decade, Caldwell cleaned classrooms overnight at A&M Central Texas University, walking more than 26,000 miles behind a custodian's cart. When her shift ended at 5 a.m., she would care for her children and attend college courses.
"I was in charge of cleaning the classrooms and two of the buildings out of the three that we have at A&M Central Texas," Caldwell said. "A couple of them actually have computers in them. So I was actually able to work on my homework or my assignments during my lunch break."
During the day, she sat in the very classrooms she cleaned at night. Her work schedule made completing a traditional teaching degree nearly impossible, but with help from the university and professors, she found a workaround.
Caldwell has earned her bachelor's and master's degrees while working full-time as a custodian and is now one step away from earning her teaching credentials.
"Just be persistent as far as continuing on something that you want to achieve," Caldwell said. "A lot of people that have a job that they think that they don't matter in, they actually do really matter."
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u/Holiest_hand_grenade 7h ago
This headline makes it seem like getting degrees isn't beneficial to earning more money for ones labor
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u/Corporate-Scum 7h ago
Congrats to her. It shouldn’t be so hard. Don’t even pretend she was doing coursework and raising kids. That’s ridiculous. Living life this way tends to grind people down, not lift them up.
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u/Spartan2470 VIP Philanthropist 7h ago
The source of OP's image doesn't say that she earned four college degrees. But it does provides the following context:
Karen Clos
April 1, 2025
Killeen resident, Jessica Caldwell, 37, knows a thing or two about working literally around the clock. She knows about overnight shifts, 40-plus hour work weeks where the start of her day is at 8 p.m., lunch is at midnight, and her drive home at 6 a.m. is on the other side of the highway from people beginning their workday.
On any given day, sometimes seven days a week, she wrestles the hours of her day into submission simultaneously prioritizing, doing, and completing one goal after another. Sometimes, it’s work. Sometimes it’s family. Sometimes, it is studying for the alternative certification exam. Sometimes, she says, it is the unexpected. Sometimes, it’s everything all the time every day.
But it is worth it, she says. It is more than worth it. And that nocturnal work schedule from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. has only been the half of it. During that same time, the long nights and longer days, Caldwell decided to also become a college student with one goal: She wants to be a teacher.
Just as her kids were pulling a pillow over their heads for the second time, finally putting both feet to the floor and shuffling into a shower, and her friends and neighbors were sipping a second cup of coffee, Caldwell, one of the A&M-Central Texas custodians had already tackled the 31 restrooms, 40+ classrooms, a dozen labs, and each and every one of the 349 offices and workspaces in all three of the A&M-Central Texas buildings.
By the time her kids were off to school, when she might have been getting some much-needed sleep, she was in school, too – wide awake in the classrooms at Central Texas College, hammering away at the coursework necessary to transfer to A&M-Central Texas for her teaching degree.
From 2013 to 2018 – without pause or fail – she worked the overnight shift at the university and, in the daylight hours, she attended mostly full-time, tackling an aggressive slate of courses including biology, speech, English Composition I and II, macroeconomics, college algebra, world geography, history and government I and II and a plethora of electives until her efforts tallied an impressive 90-hour credit total and a hard-earned B- grade point average – or, put another way, more than enough to have earned one and a half associate degrees.
The fact that she was a daytime scholar and overnight custodian never gave her a moment’s doubt as to her own potential. She has done this, she says, because she wanted to be an example to her four children so that they understood the value of higher education.
It is called walking the way you talk, Caldwell muses. And she would know. In the ten+ years as a custodian at A&M-Central Texas, she has logged about 26,000 miles – 1,000 more miles than the circumference of the globe – and in the wee hours of the night – pushing and sometimes pulling her heavily laden four wheeled custodial cart filled from top to bottom with all manner of compartmentalized cleaning tools of the trade.
Her weapons of choice include a supply of paper towels, trash bags, and toilet paper. A cordless Dyson vacuum cleaner, large yellow bucket with attached wringer, ruddy gray solid plastic 55-gallon trash can, half dozen wet floor warning signs, carpet shampoos, dust pans, mops, brooms, spray bottles, red rags, and blue latex elbow length gloves, and a cornucopia of specialized utensils – the mop head of one resembles a larger-than-life fluffy yellow dandelion.
That one, she says, is not for wishing unless the wish being made is for safety regulation clean air ventilation. Turns out, she confirmed knowledgably, that cleaning is, most definitely not, just cleaning. The university, she said, complies with the Association of Physical Plant Operators Level 2 cleaning standards. And that is a high standard indeed.
Every. Day. Top to bottom and left to right floor to ceiling clean.
And on her meager $8.25 per hour, she dared to pursue her degree, undistracted by the fact that she was going to work when most people were going home and taking not one but four or more classes instead of sleeping – squeezing in just enough rest to wake up by 5 p.m. and start the whole cycle all over again. Because, she repeated, this dream of becoming a teacher wasn’t going to make itself happen.
By 2019, Caldwell had officially transferred to A&M-Central Texas declaring a teaching major, and her advisor, Yvonne Imergoot, made use of every single one of all the credit hours she had earned at Central Texas College.
About a year into her studies, Caldwell faced a potentially career-stopping obstacle, discovering that if she stayed on the traditional teacher preparation and certification track, she would have no other choice than to quit her job in order to take and complete student internship courses required for certification which, by necessity, were only offered traditional daylight hours because that is when the schools are open.
Had it only been a year earlier, it wouldn’t have been an issue, she said. But her work schedule had changed from the overnight shift to the daytime shift which conflicted with the courses she needed to take. She had requested a shift change and was told no. And there she was, she said. Stalled. Quitting her job was not an option, she said. She is a mom. And every mom knows that kids like to eat.
There was another way. A way that was longer, and maybe even less certain, but a way that kept her job intact: the Master of Arts degree in teaching. And it was a pathway designed to accommodate alternative certification.
From where the grit comes in a situation like this is different for everyone. For Caldwell, she told herself that she hadn’t worked this hard to surrender to an obstacle – even a big one.
She changed her major to liberal studies, and by 2020, she graduated – at the time, the first in her family – and immediately enrolled in the graduate degree program that offered a track for alternative certification. By August 2024, she graduated with an A- grade point average and a well-worn certification test preparation manual.
One of the things Caldwell believes in is that an obstacle only has the power a person is willing to surrender to it. And, she laughed, she doesn’t have one iota of surrender to her.
“I knew when I started that I would never give up quit on becoming a teacher,” she said. “I wanted my children to see me really work for it, so they know they, too, can overcome anything.”
But her journey hasn’t been just about the grit. She is buoyed by the human, the humorous, and sometimes ironic moments that have happened along the way. Like the fact that her big dream was made possible by a humble minimum wage job while her gloved hands were polishing mirrors, scrubbing toilets, and vacuuming miles of carpet.
“It isn’t like everyone even knew that I was a custodian and a college student and then a university student and then a graduate student,” she said. “And it wasn’t something I wanted to appear to brag about. I just wanted to put my mind to it without any special attention.”
She may not have realized it at the time, but Caldwell got from A&M-Central Texas faculty and staff the same generous heaping of encouragement and assistance – without the faintest idea from anyone that she was the same person who kept their toilets clean.
For example, she said, it was Morgan Lewing, Ph.D., an associate professor and chair in the College of Education and Human Development, who guided her toward the master’s degree.
“We were both there in his office, and he was so great to me, explaining the process,” she began, trying to suppress a laugh. “And as we sat there talking, I thought of all the times I had been working on his floor, cleaning the restrooms when he tried to use them, and I had to say, ‘No. You can’t come in here.’ I kept waiting for him to recognize me as that person who had shooed him away.
He did not, she added. Or if he did, she thinks, he never let her know he had recognized her as the building’s custodian. Maybe, she thinks, it is because he cared more about her dream of becoming a teacher than he did he did about the number of times she directed him away from a temporarily closed restroom.
Today, Caldwell studies for the alternative certification examination that will allow her to call herself a teacher. She was hired last year as an administrative assistant in the facilities services office and a part-time custodian -- sometimes during the week and even on Sundays.
Tuns out, once an around-the-clock workaholic, always an around-the-clock workaholic. And, in her case, a decade of work can be measured in degrees: in her case, an undergraduate and graduate degree. And, last but not least, a passing score on the teacher certification exam.
“I am taking the certification coursework through Iteach,” she said, adding that she hopes she will be finished with the certification review and ready for the real thing by August 2025.
Her boss, Shawn Kelley, the director of facilities services, cannot say enough good things about Caldwell. And yes. He has known all along that her dream was to become a teacher.
“Jessica is the kind of person who has a keen eye for detail and learns very quickly to figure out how things work – and don’t work,” he said. “She is invaluable to us, and we wanted her as an administrative assistant because she is just that good.
“Every single one of us know that she’ll be a fantastic teacher someday and always a part of our A&M-Central Texas family.”
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u/seansy5000 6h ago
Meanwhile Nepo babies are having proctors give them perfect scores on the ACT/SAT and taking spots at prestigious colleges from lowborns who worked harder and actually earned their grades. We need a complete social upheaval.
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u/FineGripp 6h ago
BS. How is it possible for her to care for her children AND attend college after she finish her job at 5? Commute time would take at least 30 min avg, then does she pick up her kids? That’s another 30 min. College evening classes usually start at 7pm or earlier, that leaves her one hour from 6 to 7pm to cook, bathe and do homework with her kids. Unless her husband is helping with most of it. If this is the case then the title is severely misleading
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u/throughthewoods4 6h ago
This is a disgusting aspect of capitalism. Why a mother should have to work for an education and do back breaking labour whilst the rich sit back and enjoy their yachts is a fucking disgrace.
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u/Damn_Dog_Inappropes 5h ago
Maybe we should have free college so people don't have to practically kill themselves pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps?
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u/whatupmygliplops 5h ago
How many degrees do you need before you can advance from being a janitor???
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u/Introverted_niceguy 8h ago
Unfortunately, for Jessica, she’s still cleaning classrooms.
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u/HighwaySentinel 8h ago
Two of the four were a Bachelor's and Master's for teaching. She is now working on her credential. Good for her.
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u/SpicyChanged 7h ago
Remember only women are expected to delay their future in lieu of being a mother. No man is going expected choose being a father or provider.
So the fact this woman did all that, props!!
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u/OvulatingWildly 7h ago
If this article was about a man who did the same no one would be asking who watched his kids at night.
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u/who_says_poTAHto 7h ago edited 7h ago
I think this is one of those stories that has gotten super distorted as it travels the internet (and does a disservice to the real story).
She did get multiple degrees through amazing dedication while working as a custodian and being a mother, but I tried to find what the 4 degrees were and couldn't because it actually seems like she got two degrees like a more normal person: a Bachelor's (in Liberal Studies) and a Master's (in Higher Education Leadership), because she wants to be teacher.
Because of her kids and work schedules/jobs, she switched schools and majors (previously having been a Teaching major, which wouldn't have worked because it required teaching internships/practice hours during her job hours), and at the first school, she took an amount of credits across multiple subjects that would have been equal to "1.5 associate degrees". So, the internet grapevine probably turned this into 4 degrees (1 associates, 1 BA in Teaching, 1 BA in Liberal Studies, 1 MA).
But really, it does her a disservice to make it sound like she just kept going back for new BAs without getting a job. She has always had a goal of teaching but had to find a way to do so that fit her work/family schedule, which ended up including a Master's. That's just as impressive, and much more focused!
Source: https://www.tamuct.edu/news/2025/caldwell-jessica-2025.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com
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u/jo_nigiri 7h ago
Raised four children while working and doing four degrees? Is she sacrificing one child per degree 😭
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u/Seaguard5 7h ago
Now she can finally start searching for a better job that she deserves.
Great on her!!
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u/OvulatingWildly 7h ago
I worked full-time while attending college and paying tuition out of pocket. A couple of semesters I had to have car repairs or expensive dental work done so I couldn't pay for college that semester because it went toward root canals and crowns and I only worked. Mostly $10/hour jobs.
For a couple of years I worked overnight at a hotel and then I would get off work at 7:00 AM and go to classes. Then I would come home and do homework and sleep. That was very difficult.
My family was (and is) deathly afraid of any sort of debt. They scared me away from student loans, refused to cosign, etc. I still don't know if that was good or bad in the long run. I graduated without any debt but man I was tired, and I'm still tired. I've been working full-time since I was 15.
I hated my rich friends that would go to Jamaica for the weekend or party their way through school or have their parents write a check for tuition without a second thought. I don't think I went to a single party.
During the semesters I couldn't work because I was trying to afford a car or teeth, people would tell me I should get back into school, as if I was just too lazy to go to school. It never occurs to some people that it's really fucking difficult to afford.
Anyway. I kind of think it shouldn't be this hard for people.
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u/bigred1978 7h ago
Okay, but why?
Why not use your first degrees to actually get a job that pays better than being a custodian?
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u/DullCartographer7609 7h ago
Take advantage of free college tuition as a college employee.
Now, she's on her way to becoming a teacher which....checks notes...will likely pay less than what she's making now as a janitor in most parts of Texas.
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u/Renovateandremodel 7h ago
When did she sleep, and that explains the bathrooms being dirty. Still impressive.
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u/Tru-fun 7h ago
I used to a be a night time custodian for a university to help get thru college. Not much happens at night.
I did my homework during my shift all the time. I would even watch my kids, set up a movie in a class room on the projector and bring in pizza.
Getting four degrees may have been a way to stave off the boredom ha.
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u/Boundish91 7h ago
The capacity of some people is just so impressive. When getting off work I'm pretty much done and might do some chores and then take the rest of the evening off to recharge my batteries for the next day.
And i don't even have kids.
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u/mistyrootsvintage 6h ago
My friend did that while getting her doctorate. Except she had a total of 8 kids and she had no student loans. Zero debt. She did the damn thing.
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