Student Spotlight: Kaylee Moreau

Kaylee Moreau told herself over and over again that she didn't have time for college. She's a single mom who focused all of her time and energy on her two children and her job. "I'd convince myself if I went to school I wouldn't be able to work full-time and provide for my kids. If I went to school, who was going to help me take care of the kids? It was excuse after excuse after excuse. The struggle was getting harder and harder as my kids were getting older. It was time. Finally I figured it out and I just did it."

In the fall of 2022, Moreau took that big first step and enrolled at Onondaga Community College. A short time later she began working at St. Joseph's Hospital as a Patient Care Technician. She always loved the medical field and her experience there confirmed she wanted to become a nurse one day.

Her tireless drive to succeed includes being a full-time student at OCC, working 12-hour shifts at St. Joe's, and raising her 10 year old son and 4 year old daughter whom she is setting examples for. "My daughter (Isabella) will grab a keyboard with a tablet and say 'look Mommy I'm doing homework.' I don't think she understands fully what I'm doing, but she understands Mommy does homework and Carter does homework. My kids are why I get up every day and strive so hard for what I'm doing. I want to change my life and I want to change their lives too. My kids mean everything to me."

Moreau is in the Health Sciences degree program where she is working on her Nursing prerequisites. She's done so well she's earned membership in the Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society. Morea is just beginning her final semester at OCC and plans to transfer to St. Joseph's College of Nursing this summer. And she hopes anyone considering going to college later in life goes for it. "Take the step. You've got to do it. The only person holding you back is you!"