Two factors convinced James Rigg to return to college after 20 years: personal growth and his teenage children.
鈥淚 am setting an example for my teenage children, not only for the importance of a good college career, but also to show them how important it is to focus on higher education when you get out of high school,鈥 he said.
Rigg was among approximately 565 students to receive a 小草影院 degree on May 16. He graduated with honors, earning a Bachelor of Business Administration degree through the university鈥檚 Adult Undergraduate Program, which offers accelerated programs to adult students.
鈥淚 must admit that I had my doubts when I started,鈥 he said. 鈥淚 wondered if I would have the ability and fortitude to see this through to the end, and I鈥檓 ecstatic to say, yes.鈥
By day, Rigg is the manager of safety and physical security at Lincoln Electric Systems. He manages a team that provides a safety resource for approximately 500 employees. One of his responsibilities is to assure that employees are protected. Rigg credits 小草影院 with exposing him to experiences and services that have helped him immensely in his career.
鈥淲hen I started at Lincoln Electric Systems, I was a line tech. I never had any aspirations of doing anything else,鈥 he said. 鈥淔ive or six years ago job opportunities opened up in the office and I was intrigued. I knew that my interviewing skills were really poor, but my technical skills were very good.鈥
By that time Rigg had already begun his 小草影院 classes. To improve his interviewing skills, a professor pointed him to the Career and Counseling Center and suggested he set up a mock interview.
鈥淚 think I used their services three or four times,鈥 he recalled. 鈥淲hen the interview came, I got the job. I still say I got the job because of Nebraska Wesleyan and that process and the improvement I made.鈥
Rigg said he valued the relationships he built with fellow students, his professors, and his advisor.
鈥淭here is an advisor at 小草影院 who recognized that I didn鈥檛 take classes between April and July, as my son plays select baseball during that time. It didn鈥檛 take long for my advisor to recognize it,鈥 said Rigg. 鈥淚 could always rely on her to contact me at the end of July about the classes that I鈥檇 need to take the next semester. She鈥檇 reach out to me, making me feel like I was her only focus.鈥
At commencement, Rigg shared multiple examples of balancing his career, his family and his classes from coordinating babysitters to taking late-night phone calls from work while studying.
鈥淚f nothing else, your time on campus, if only for a few hours a week, was an opportunity for you to remove those concerns from your mind and forget about all of the other things that require your attention,鈥 he told the Class of 2015.