Dead Ends are No Option for Determined Tri-C Student

May 06, 2016

“Tri-C gave me a chance when no one else would,” Tawanna Tyson says, with tears in her eyes. Tawanna was placed in the Get on Track program through the Cleveland Municipal Court, and in order to graduate from the program and get off probation, she had to obtain her GED. She attempted the exam four different times and was unable to pass.

Tawanna joined the Project Learn program at Tri-C and attempted the exam once more without passing. A staff member recognized that although she had high scores in reading and writing, math was holding her back. With this knowledge, Tawanna was able to focus on the math portion and went on to obtain her GED, graduating at the top of her class.

Immediately after earning her GED and graduating from the Get on Track program, Tawanna enrolled at Tri-C in fall of 2013. In her first semester she received a 3.75 GPA and has maintained a 3.5 GPA all the way to graduation. She was inducted into the Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society in April 2016.

Tawanna was recently received her Chemical Dependency Counseling Assistant certificate, which will help her get a job in a treatment center upon graduation. She wants to help others through drug addiction, having faced similar obstacles herself. She wants to help them find the resources to stay off of drugs, get an education and find great jobs so they don’t feel as though they at a dead end.

Tawanna knows there are no dead ends with the help from the right people and the right resources because although she claims that she “gave up so many times,” Tri-C showed her that there is always a way. “Tri-C gave me employment when no one else would because of my background, and they gave me a chance to start over.”

Tawanna works as a Student Ambassador at Metro Campus to help pay her way through school. “Tri-C not only helped me get a job, but they helped me find housing, and my bosses even gave me food out of their own houses. Any little thing I needed help with, they helped me because they could see that I was really trying.”

In spring 2016, Tawanna was chosen to speak at Phenomenal Woman Magazine’s annual conference. “I didn’t even know I was phenomenal because I gave up so many times before (coming to) Tri-C,” she said.