Reznet

Degree of Difficulty

By Jason Salter

LARAMIE, Wyo.—Time is not on Reinette Curry's side.

A full-time education major at the University of Wyoming, the 24-year-old Northern Arapahoe is also a full-time mom.

"Every day, I struggle with time management," Curry said. "But somehow I manage to do it."

A strong support system of family and friends keeps her going, she said, and when she feels like giving up, all she has to do is look at her 5-year-old son, Clayvin.

“I just look at him and think, ‘I’m doing this for him and not only for myself,’ ” Curry said.

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Not long ago, college was something that Curry thought was out of the question. After attending a semester in 2001 at Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kan., Curry returned home to Ethete, Wyo., to give birth to her son. She thought her lifelong wish of earning a degree had ended.

Curry said her parents got her through that difficult time.

In 2002, she moved to Laramie, Wyo., and lived with her dad while he attended the University of Wyoming here. At his suggestion, she decided to give UW a try and enrolled for classes in fall 2002.

Her son also played a part in her decision to return to college. “I knew I had to do something to make his life better,” she said.

Now a senior, Curry said she struggled in her first semester at UW. Not only was it hard to keep up with schoolwork, but interacting with teachers and fellow students also proved a battle for someone unaccustomed to talking with non-natives.

School Activities

To help build her confidence and get to know people better, Curry said, she decided to involve herself in school activities, including Keepers of the Fire, the American Indian student club.

“I had to come out of my shell,” Curry said of being elected a club leader. “I had to because I was in a leadership position.”

She also became involved with Sigma Lambda Gamma National Sorority Inc., a minority women’s interest group that opened a UW chapter this year.

Curry said that all her hard work has been worthwhile and that raising her son, who is in kindergarten, has helped her learn to be a teacher.

“He’s just perfect for me,” Curry said. “I help him with his homework, and since I want to teach kindergarten, he helps me a lot.”

Erin Dunnagan-Oliver, manager of American Indian student programs at UW, said she admires Curry for her commitment to Clayvin’s education. “I’m super impressed with her,” Dunnagan-Oliver said. “She’s so involved with his life and school.”

After graduation, Curry said, she wants to attend graduate school or become a kindergarten teacher and work with Native students. Clayvin, she said, already knows that he wants to go to college.

“He sees how I live, and he knows,” Curry said. “When people ask him what he wants to be when he grows up, he says he wants to go to college, and he’s only 5.”

Jason wrote his first computer program in 6th grade, designed and built a computer before finishing high school, and then went to MIT to become... a molecular biologist. The move from computers to molecular biology makes sense when you think about DNA as "programming code" and recombinant DNA technology as the means to reprogram organisms.

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