{"id":4178,"date":"2015-11-12T15:11:50","date_gmt":"2015-11-12T20:11:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/2016\/04\/25\/going-the-distance\/"},"modified":"2022-11-07T15:06:22","modified_gmt":"2022-11-07T20:06:22","slug":"going-the-distance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/going-the-distance\/","title":{"rendered":"Going the distance"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

The closest Jennifer Osorno-Bejarano \u201912 came to giving up wasn\u2019t when she moved to Greenville at the age of 15 unable to speak English.<\/p>\n

Nor was it when she couldn\u2019t graduate from high school until she turned 19, had to pay out-of-state tuition for college classes at Greenville Tech, or spend thousands of dollars and countless hours wading through the cumbersome immigration process.<\/p>\n

No, the closest she came to throwing in the towel on her goal of earning a college degree was when she was faced with the prospect of losing something that meant even more.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen my brother got a\u00a0letter saying that he could either go wait for his\u00a0papers down there or he would\u00a0be out of status and deported if he\u00a0overstayed, I basically wanted to quit,\u201d Osorno-Bejarano said. \u201cThat was a very stressful time.\u201d<\/p>\n

The letter came from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and down there was his native Colombia, South America. Sebastian Osorno was a month from his own high school graduation when he had to move to a place he hadn\u2019t been since he was 5, waiting to be granted residency in the United States.<\/p>\n

Sebastian\u2019s principal allowed him to graduate early, and Jennifer moved her wedding up so he could attend. There was little else the family could do, however, other than wait in limbo for a year while spending every spare penny they had on lawyers and plane tickets.<\/p>\n

The hurdle turned out to be the last of many Osorno-Bejarano faced in her pursuit of four-year degree, but like the others she cleared it during an eight-year quest that culminated with a Bachelor of Liberal Arts in Business Administration from Furman.<\/p>\n

Osorno-Bejarano moved to Greenville in 2000 and enrolled in the ninth grade in January, but because of language and credit issues she had to repeat the grade.<\/p>\n

When she did graduate from high school, because her residency was not finalized,\u00a0she was ineligible for in-state tuition, and the double-whammy of much-more-expensive classes and a pricey, protracted immigration process tested Osorno-Bejarano\u2019s pocketbook as well as her patience. It also meant she had clear requirements for continuing her education, which Furman Undergraduate Evening Studies (UES) met.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have always worked full time, and I needed something in the evening,\u201d she said. \u201cFurman carried a strong reputation, but the evening program is more affordable\u00a0. . .\u00a0I went part time and full time, depending on the semester and how much I could afford.\u201d<\/p>\n

The program did more than offer Osorno-Bejarano convenient class times. There was also a personal touch she appreciated, especially from former UES director Brett Barclay. \u201cYou go through hard times, yes . . . Life happens. I had some semesters where I kind of wanted to give up, but he was my mentor, and he encouraged me not to quit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like his sister and parents, Sebastian eventually was granted permanent residency, and he\u2019s currently a student at the University of South Carolina. Osorno-Bejarano does the administrative work for the family business, and she says the degree has helped her\u00a0grow professionally\u00a0and\u00a0manage a company while unexpectedly opening another door.<\/p>\n

\"Osorno-Bejarano<\/a>

Osorno-Bejarano and LatinosUnited group volunteering at Piedmont Women’s Center<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cSince I graduated a bunch of friends and I created an organization called\u00a0LatinosUnited<\/a>,\u201d she said. \u201cWe go to high schools and we speak to students about the importance of higher education, the importance of graduating from high school, of getting a degree, of becoming an entrepreneur, serving the community . . . I\u2019m on the board, and one of the requirements to serve on the board is that you have a degree.\u201d<\/p>\n

For more on Furman\u2019s UES program, click\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  The closest Jennifer Osorno-Bejarano \u201912 came to giving up wasn\u2019t when she moved to Greenville at the age of 15 unable to speak English. Nor was it when she […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":4179,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,3,66],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-department-page","category-alumni","category-undergraduate-evening-studies"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4178\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}