Kirsten Calloway

Several years before Kirsten Calloway found Penn LPS Online’s Bachelor of Applied Arts and Sciences (BAAS) program, she experienced what she calls a tower moment. “Everything came crumbling down,” she says. A company merger in 2016 was moving her division out of state. Kirsten had recently divorced, and her priority was maintaining a stable environment for her teenage daughter who was finishing high school and preparing for college. “Moving wasn’t feasible,” she says. “So, I had to step back from a leadership role and start over in an entry-level position. After being with the organization for over 12 years, that was discouraging,” she recalls. “I knew I was running into roadblocks because I had never finished my bachelor’s degree.”

Kirsten had been a young mom who always planned to return to school—an ambition that went deeper than career advancement. “My mother—a single adoptive parent—passed away from cancer when I was 23,” she shares. “A few days before she passed, I told her, ‘I promise that someday I will go back to college, finish, and make you proud.’ So, it was important for me to live up to that promise.”

She started her college journey part-time, taking general education classes at local community colleges. Between her coursework and an opportunity within her company to become a member of the Diversity and Inclusion council and co-lead their Pride + Allies business resource group, a vision for her academic and professional future started to take form. “To pursue a full-time career focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion work, I needed to finish my degree,” she says, “but none of the colleges around my area offered any programs that had everything I was looking for.” With her daughter set to graduate college in spring 2020, Kirsten was determined to enroll in a bachelor’s program by the fall. “So, I started to see what programs were available online,” she says.

Recalling her mother was a Penn Nursing alumna, she decided to look into what Penn might offer. “I’m so grateful that I did. I think it was meant to be,” she says. When she found the Penn LPS Online BAAS program, she knew it was the right fit. “I fell in love with the Individualized Studies concentration, which allowed me to design a degree focused on building and cultivating my strengths.”

She matriculated to Penn in August 2020 and graduated in December 2021, completing three certificates (Applied Positive Psychology, Professional Writing, and Creative Writing). Her individualized concentration is in psychological sciences, social sciences, and professional writing.

Kirsten had to overcome many obstacles to earn her degree and keep the promise that helped drive her. She had not thrived academically in high school due to a convergence of factors, including diagnosed attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). She also struggled with her biracial identity after her family moved to a predominately-white town. Later, as an adult, Kirsten found herself in an abusive relationship. “It took me a long time to get out,” she shares. “I started training in mixed martial arts in 2016, studying Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and building my confidence. I finally found the courage to separate and divorce in 2017,” she continues. Kirsten recognized that experience was pivotal to returning to school. “I was ready to close that chapter of my life and begin a new one,” she says.

Eager to earn her BAAS, Kirsten set the bar high for herself when she got to Penn. “I was ready. I wanted to prove to myself that I had agency and the capacity to achieve success this time,” she says. In addition to an intense schedule, she set a goal to earn straight A’s. The asynchronous course format helped her fit full-time schoolwork around her full-time job. And Kirsten leveraged the course delivery site Canvas to keep track of assignments and due dates. Additional support and techniques for success came from an unexpected place—her coursework.

She learned about maximizing versus satisficing in one of her first courses, APOP 1000: Introduction to Applied Positive Psychology. “It’s about balancing when are you going to put all your effort into your decision-making versus deciding something is good enough,” she explains. It helped Kirsten manage her time when working on different assignments. “Applied positive psychology is about learning how to thrive in all areas of your life, not just survive,” she summarizes. “I used positive psychology references in all my classes moving forward.”

DIGC 1200: Digital Literacy and Cultural Change was also an important initial course. “Even though the class is about digital culture, I learned a lot about myself,” Kirsten explains. The course explores identity, representation, society, and change in the digital landscape. Kirsten says she owes a lot to the instructor, Clay Colmon. “He changed my perception of what my degree was going to be,” she says. “I was in school so I could do something rewarding and fulfilling in life. I was broadening my horizons and discovered a new world of possibilities.”

Kirsten’s successes at Penn are evident in her results. Not only did she complete her degree while working full-time, she also received the Continuing Education Award, and graduated summa cum laude. She remembers when her advisor told her the physical diploma would be inscribed with the Latin words for highest distinction. “It felt amazing knowing I made good on what I promised my mom I would accomplish,” she says. “I appreciated having a second chance to attend college, and I was especially grateful for the opportunity to achieve what I did.”

Through her experience at Penn, Kirsten also discovered her purpose— becoming a researcher and positive psychologist. She matriculated into the Penn Master of Applied Positive Psychology in the fall of 2022 and plans to continue to study strengths and resilience in response to adversity at the doctoral level. “My goal is to support mixed-race individuals, interracial families, transracial adoptees, and the community, promoting resiliencies from strengths-based perspectives to improve self-esteem and social connectedness.”

You can read more about Kirsten’s experience at Penn and her career goals in the feature article about the first annual Senior Colloquium.