Every milestone together: A lifelong journey toward bachelor’s degrees

Stefanie and Christina have been friends since kindergarten. This year, after helping each other through hardships, they graduated together with degrees in healthcare administration.

Stefanie Robertson and Christina Walters have been side by side since kindergarten — literally. Their maiden names, Thayer and Thunberg, were so close alphabetically that they were seated next to each other in class. And what started as required proximity turned into a lifelong friendship.  

Since graduating from high school, they’ve raised families and navigated difficult times together. But most recently, they found themselves tackling a new frontier: their bachelor’s degrees in healthcare administration.  

Healthcare workers supporting each other

In 2022, Walters faced heartbreak when she lost her father. She knew she needed to be closer to family, so she decided to move home to the Olympia area in Washington and joined Robertson in an administrative role at a Providence hospital.  

“It was a special opportunity to bring our longtime friendship into the workplace and continue supporting one another in a professional setting as well,” Walters says.

Robertson took that seriously. She had been with Providence for 18 years and noticed one day that the hospital’s partnership with Guild offered the chance to earn a bachelor’s degree from Purdue Global. She quickly applied, and when she told Walters about it, she also jumped at the chance.

“Getting my bachelor’s degree has been something I wanted to do forever, but I could never afford it,” Robertson says. “Then when I told Christina about the opportunity, she said she’d do it with me, and we decided to go back to school together.”

“I always wanted to go back to school, too,” Walters says.

The pair started the program around age 38, and both admit it was humbling to start taking classes again for the first time in decades.

“It’s tough to relearn some of the basics, especially in some of our math and English courses,” Robertson says. “Yeah, we had some tears together, that’s for sure.”

While helping each other navigate online classes, they both faced health issues that made quitting sound reasonable. What kept them going was the same thing that had kept them connected since childhood: showing up for each other. 

During the program, Robertson faced a skin cancer diagnosis and surgery. Recovery forced her to step back from work at the hospital for six weeks. While immobilized, she used her time at home to focus on finishing her final term.

“Dealing with our health issues, work, school and the daily stuff that comes along with it as parents — it really shows how strong both of us are,” Robertson says. “I’m very proud of us for being able to accomplish getting our degrees.”

Walters’ health scare was also serious. She was hospitalized with a vertebral artery dissection, which occurs when a tear forms in a blood vessel that runs up the back of the neck. If not treated, the tear in her vein could have led to blood clots and a stroke.  

The emergency had her not only worried about her health but also about falling behind in school.  

“I remember being so stressed out because I had all this work piled up,” Walters says. “But my professors were so understanding. I love that about Purdue Global.”

For the two women, the compassion and flexibility they experienced was essential to their success.  

“Purdue Global knows that the majority of the students are older and have work and kids and sports and lives,” Robertson says. “They make sure you know, ‘We know how hard life is. We want you to be successful.’”

And when life was difficult, she and Walters kept each other from setting their goal aside.  

They navigated similar classes together, worked on assignments during days off work, and always made sure they were available for moral support.  

Their commitment to each other shaped their approach to graduation, too. Walters, who started with more credits, was scheduled to graduate before Robertson. But to ensure they could walk together, Robertson took three classes in her last term to close the gap.  

“I didn’t think it was a race,” she says. “But I felt like, ‘OK, if we’re starting this together, we have to end it together.’”