Mother-Daughter Graduates Supported Each Other Through Rutgers Journey

NEW BRUNSWICK - They live together. They attend school together, and this month mother-daughter Latonya Johnson and Laila Birchett are graduating together from Rutgers School of Social Work.

“My family – my kids, my mom and dad – everyone is proud because it’s two generations going to college together,” said Johnson, 43. “I never thought in a million years, I’d be going to school with my daughter and graduating in the same college and major. It’s kind of surreal, but it has brought us closer because we connected on a level that I never thought I’d connect with my kids.”

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She and Birchett, 21, transferred to Rutgers in September 2022 from Middlesex College and Montclair State University respectively.

At the time, Birchett was a psychology major with no clear vision of her career path. She just knew she wanted to enter a field that allowed her to help others, especially the homeless or the elderly. Johnson was already helping others as a certified drug and alcohol counselor, but she wanted to complete her education, a life-long goal that kept getting postponed.

“My first college course was in 1999,” said Johnson, a recently divorced mother of six, whose children range in age from 26 to 4. “From 1999 to now, I’ve attempted to go back six different times, but I was unsuccessful. I didn’t have the proper time management because I’m a wife, I’m a mother, I’m working full time.”

She realized the only way to finish her education was to go back to school full time. That meant giving up her full-time job for a part-time position. The decision was frightening, because it meant scaling back her income while taking on additional student-loan debt. She credits the Rutgers community with getting her through it – the programs for older students, the mentoring, the sisterhood at Douglass Residential College, but especially the available scholarships.

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“Her journey has been truly inspiring,” Birchett said. “It’s encouraged me to work harder in college.”

Johnson knew that she eventually wanted to obtain her master’s degree in social work. She started looking at schools that offered an accelerated program in social work where students can obtain their master’s degrees within a year of graduating. Johnson started going on college tours and Birchett came along. Johnson settled on Rutgers. In some ways, her decision was an easy one. The school was close to her North Brunswick home, and she already worked at Rutgers at the suicide prevention Hopeline and, it offers an Advanced Standing program, allowing her a fast track to her master’s degree.

On those school tours and in conversations with her mom, Birchett learned more about the field and realized that social work, rather than psychology, is more aligned with the career she envisioned for herself.

In their time at Rutgers, they took only one class together, and they rarely studied together because of their schedules. But they relied on one another. Birchett gave her mother tech support, helping her navigate the various computer programs that a college student now uses. Johnson helped her daughter better understand her schoolwork, providing her with the real-life experience and knowledge that a college student can use.

In another way, Johnson was like Birchett’s guidance counselor, encouraging her to pursue her master’s degree, telling her it’s easier and quicker to do it now at 21 rather than later in life.

“‘Go for your master’s because I’m telling you from my experience, you can have more opportunities, you can evolve and make more money,’” Johnson recalls telling her daughter. “‘I’m telling you what no one told me.’”

Birchett listened to her mother’s advice. The duo plan to enter the Master of Social Work program at Rutgers later this year.

“I feel she’s always been someone I can look up to because, like she said, when she was my age, her parents didn’t understand the college process. I think without her, I’d be truly lost.”

Birchett admits that it was a bit strange to go to the same school as her mother, who can connect with others easier than she can. But it was Birchett who helped her mother find a community at Rutgers. When Birchett attended a program for transfer students, she learned about Douglass College.

“When they told me about Douglass, I said, ‘Yes, this is what I’ve been looking for’ because I really wanted to find a sense of community. It was really welcoming.”

She encouraged her mom to join, and they both ended up with the same mentor, Madinah Elamin, senior director of diversity, equity, and inclusion at Douglass, who told Johnson about scholarships, helped her with class schedules and setting goals, and introduced her to the Bunting Program for non-traditional students.

Mother-daughter also have similar grade point averages: 4.0 for Johnson, 3.9 for Birchett.

“I’m making a 4.0 and I’m proud. I remember one time someone said to me, ‘Nobody cares about the GPA nowadays,’ and I said, ‘For me that means everything, because you don’t know my story.’ It matters to me. There is so much behind that. I know how far I’ve come and what it will mean for my family.”

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