UOPX alumni spotlight: Jennifer Craig

Spend more than a few minutes with Jennifer Craig (AAB, 2008; BSB/C, 2010; MIS-CB, 2024), and you’ll probably hear about one of her four children or her first grandchild. Or perhaps you’ll learn more about her work with the Annapolis, Maryland, chapter of GiGi’s Playhouse opens in new window, a nonprofit that offers resources to the Down syndrome community. That’s because Craig centers her life on her family, especially its most vulnerable members. 

In fact, her middle-school best friend, Kat Onrubia, tells how it was Craig’s ease with young children that rekindled their friendship. 

“We lost touch after high school graduation and then reconnected about 20 years ago when my oldest daughter was born,” says Onrubia. “[Craig] came over to meet the baby, and in the chaos of having two toddlers, along with a screaming newborn, she scooped the baby up, changed her diaper and rocked her while I helped my other two children. It was like no time had passed.” 

In reality, a lot had transpired from when they first met to when they reconnected. Some of it had gone as planned. Other events were less expected — like Craig finding out she was pregnant at 17. 

Taking a road less traveled

UOPX alumna Jennifer Craig

Jennifer Craig
AAB, 2008; BSB/C, 2010; MIS-CB, 2024

“In high school, I was college bound,” shares Craig, “I was doing everything you were supposed to do to get ready for college, [like] visits and applying.” 

She pauses before adding: “But life had a different path for me. Being a teenage mom … the traditional route of college just wasn’t going to work.”

Instead, Craig focused on raising her child and making ends meet by teaching at a preschool day care. Before she knew it, 10 years had passed and Craig began to reevaluate her situation. Her job offered free child care, and the schedule worked well for life’s flow with young kids, but she knew that wasn’t what she wanted to do forever. 

She started investigating online degree programs and landed on University of Phoenix opens in new window for its online flexibility, but she wasn’t fully committed. Fortunately, Craig had an enrollment representative at UOPX who helped her understand her options. The representative walked her through the journey. 

Craig’s sister-in-law, meanwhile, led by example. She had also chosen University of Phoenix and was six months into her program. “Watching her do it, I was like, ‘I can do this too!’” says Craig. 

She signed up to earn an associate degree and kept going toward the bachelor’s, ultimately choosing a degree in communication for its versatility.

It wasn’t easy, though. “There were so many things I didn’t know how to do,” she says. “Like when it came to writing a paper, I could barely type.” 

As she reentered the world of school, Craig continued to work full time in child care. She was also raising four young children: Her husband at that time had a son who lived with them. “To be honest it was a lot of late nights. It was a lot of staying up after they went to bed,” says Craig. 

While Craig worked around her children’s schedules, her children served as motivation to keep going. “I wanted more for my children and not to live paycheck to paycheck like I was at that time,” Craig says.

Craig was motivated, but she wasn’t a martyr. She believed in taking breaks. That meant completing her program in five years, but it also meant maintaining her sanity. “When I started feeling the burnout, I would take the break,” she says. Even when she had just one class to go, she honored what she needed, took that last three-week hiatus and came back to complete the course and finish her degree.  

Ironically, Craig wasn’t interested in a break after the bachelor’s. She dived right into the master’s program, but then quickly realized the timing wasn’t right. Her children, who’d supported her during the bachelor’s degree, needed more focused attention. So, Craig stepped away from the master’s and focused on using the degree she had to the betterment of her family. 

Applying what she learned

Craig was ready for a new career path outside of child care. Through the recommendation of a friend, she applied for a sales representative role at a beer distributor and got the job. “It was exactly what I needed,” she says. “It was kind of entry-level admin work along with the inside sales.” 

Craig soaked up new skills and, after five years, moved on to a similar role with a wine and liquor distributor. It was a fun industry, but when she went through a divorce and became a single mother, her job wasn’t paying the bills. 

Craig set her sights on a marketing coordinator role. It was a stretch, but she threw herself into learning everything she could about the company and her role.  

When her company went through an acquisition, they inherited a cloud-based software tool designed to help companies manage their customer relationships. Craig was tasked with learning how to integrate and implement that and then other systems. She loved it. Her boss encouraged Craig to keep learning as much as she could. He saw that she was gaining the qualifications that would see her move from coordinator to marketing operations manager. 

Craig gained an industry certification for the tool and soon changed career paths to back-end marketing, which included tasks like marketing and sales automation and software implementation and integration. As she headed in this new trajectory, Craig had another surprise: She and her second husband found out they were expecting a child. Then, when Craig was 12 weeks pregnant, they received the news that the baby would be born with Down syndrome. 

Scared by the diagnosis, Craig confesses that she broke down crying with her oldest son. “I said, ‘I don’t want him to be picked on in high school,’” Craig recounts.

Her oldest son had a different viewpoint: “He said, ‘Mom, people don’t pick on the kids with Down syndrome or special needs anymore.’” According to him, Craig says, students protect such children from the bullies. 

Bolstered by her family support, Craig began to look outward as well. She got involved with GiGi’s Playhouse, which connected her to the Down syndrome community. Slowly and with some trepidation, she attended her first event at Gigi’s Playhouse. 

“It was amazing,” she recalls. “They are just amazing people.” 

As Craig felt strengthened about her son’s diagnosis, she was affected by another blow: companywide layoffs. Fortunately, she soon landed a new role as marketing operations manager at a health services software company, where she distinguished herself enough to be transferred to the business systems team.

As the business systems architect, Craig builds out the framework and tools leveraged during the marketing and sales teams. Her new manager, Craig says, recognized her potential and suggested she go for the master’s degree she’d given up on earlier in life.

“‘You have the know-how to do this,’” Craig recalls her boss saying. “‘[And] you need that piece of paper.’”

At the top of her game

That conversation prompted Craig to reach out to University of Phoenix again, where she learned about the competency-based (CB) program opens in new window. The idea behind competency-based education is to leverage a student’s work experience in a degree program. Ideal for students who work well independently, the program lets students demonstrate their mastery of skills as they learn them. If they already have a skill set covered in the degree program and can demonstrate mastery, they can move on to the next segment. In this way, students can complete a degree relatively quickly by focusing on learning what they don’t already know.  

Despite the merits of a CB degree program, Craig was wary. She was working full time, serving on the board for her chapter of GiGi’s Playhouse and raising a special-needs preschooler. “Would I have the time to keep up with that program?” she wondered.

As with the bachelor’s program, Craig’s enrollment advisor offered options. “She assured me if this one didn’t work for me, I could always switch back to the other one,” Craig says.  

Craig acknowledges that the investment of time was substantial. “It was a lot of work, and [it meant] missing out on some of the things that I would have normally done on the weekends,” she says. “But it was for only a year, so I just kind of pushed through and did it.”

Craig’s greatest challenge was staying on top of the classes, since the competency-based program didn’t have set due dates. And this time, she wasn’t taking breaks.

“It’s very easy to get behind,” she explains. “There was one block of classes [where] I was scrambling. So, the next block I worked a lot ahead. That way, if anything came up, I was able to stay on track.”

For Craig, it was worth it. “You know, years ago when I left the day care industry and went to work in the beer industry, if somebody said I would be doing this kind of work today [as a business systems architect], I would’ve probably laughed,” she says. “I never thought I would enjoy doing something like I do now.”

But surprises have defined Craig’s life, from the arrival of her children to her career trajectory. At this point, she seems to have embraced the unexpected. 

“You know, with a new grandson and this guy [her son], I’m going to take some time and just enjoy that,” she says. “He’s amazing. I don’t know how to describe the little light in him.” 

Another master’s degree, more career growth — all this may yet come to Craig. But for now, she’s content to enjoy what hard work and life in general have brought her: much for which to be grateful.

Meet Phoenixes like Jennifer. Make connections, build relationships and be part of a growing community. Join a chapter opens in new window!

Headshot of Stephanie Hoselton

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Stephanie Hoselton has always enjoyed a good story. She gained an English degree from Texas A&M University with the plan to teach or write. As life happens, she fell into recruiting and didn’t look back. Stephanie spent over a decade in agency recruiting, placing candidates at SAP, Verizon and across financial services and healthcare. She started in Talent Acquisition with the University of Phoenix in 2021. She loves hearing candidates tell their career stories and sharing the story that is University of Phoenix.

checkmark

This article has been vetted by University of Phoenix's editorial advisory committee. 
Read more about our editorial process.

Read more articles like this: