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An Eye Opening New Career

Constance Knight is one of those individuals who is prepared to take every opportunity she gets and make the most of it. It was on one such occasion that her life changed forever.

For some years, Constance had worked a variety of jobs, but wherever she worked, "It just wasn't my niche." When Constance looked into going back to school, her brother, who had graduated from the Memphis campus, recommended National College. He shared how it had been a great learning experience for him.

It was the same great experience Constance encountered when she enrolled at the Bartlett campus-especially in her accounting classes. From the start, Constance realized that her instructor (and now campus director), Sheralei Clayborne's top priority was to help her students really learn what they needed for a career in accounting. "When I didn't understand," Constance states, "she would take time out to make sure I understood." In fact, by her last term Constance had such a grasp of the ins-and-outs of accounting that she was able to help other students. It's another aspect of National College Constance loves: "It's not -- I'm going to make an A, and you're going to fail... Everyone's trying to help each other out."

In fact, it was one day in Constance's accounting class when all the preparation she had gained in her courses met with the opportunity of a lifetime and opened doors to her future. Sheralei had asked her class to come prepared with questions for a guest-speaker who ran a major Wall Street accounting firm. "Her exact words were: ‘I need you to ask a lot of questions," Constance remembers. Constance's ears immediately perked up - this was exactly the career she was interested in.

For the next hour of class, Constance bombarded Mr. Rogers, a senior partner of Gaetan, Johannes, and Vaasco, LLP, with every question she had about the accounting field. "I thought I was bugging him," she says with a laugh, "Come to find out that he told [Ms. Clayborne] then, that he wanted me [to come work for him]." Within a week Constance got a call from Mr. Rogers' secretary, and shortly after she was hired as the marketing coordinator for the area, researching possible customers for the firm from Memphis to Arkansas.

Constance will hold that position until she's graduated with her associate degree in accounting, and then she'll be promoted to an associate accountant. And she doesn't plan on stopping there - Constance is going to continue on to get her bachelor's. She knows it's a lot of work, "But it's worth it," she states emphatically, "It's what I want. And I'm pleased with it." It was the opportunity of a lifetime that Constance says she would never have had if it weren't for National: "I would never have met him...I would never have had the opportunity to even have a conversation about accounting with someone of his relevance."

Now, "I'm learning the world isn't how I thought it was," Constance shares. Her education at National and her experience at her job has opened her eyes to ways that she can be a part of fixing problems... and she's prepared to make the most of every one of those opportunities.