On November 20^th, Pat Ormand and her granddaughter, Melody Ormond, graduated together from the University of Tennessee in Chattanooga (UTC), marking three generations to earn degrees from UTC.

The 74-year-old Pat was finally able to finish the long-sought Bachelors which she had started working towards 42 years earlier.

Pat started her journey towards higher education in 1978, where she studied for just one semester at Atlanta’s Kennesaw State University. Moving to Chattanooga afterwards, she spent the next 40 years raising her children and grandchildren, and working full-time in local accounting firms.

She never lost sight of her dream of being a college graduate, and over the years she would occasionally take college courses, but life was too busy for her to fully commit herself to her studies.

That is, until 2017, when the slower pace of retirement life finally provided the opportunity for her to focus on achieving that longtime goal of earning a university degree. After much encouragement from the family she spent years supporting and caring for, Pat finally enrolled full-time as a student at UTC.

But Pat wasn’t the only Ormand woman studying at the university. Her granddaughter, 22-year-old Melody Ormond, transferred to UTC as a sophomore, and it was then that the two discovered they both had enough credits to make graduating at the same time a possibility.

Pat—or “Nana,” as she is called by her grandchildren—decided to study Anthropology, while Melody directed her studies towards Psychology. Melody has loved having her grandmother as a fellow student, and when campus was still open before the COVID-19 shutdowns, the two would often run into each other in the hallways.

“I always brag since she started going to school with me,” Melody said to UTC. “I’ve told people, like every class, all my friends, ‘Oh, Nana, she goes to school, my Nana, my Nana, did you hear that? And everybody’s always like, ‘Oh wow, that’s so cool.’ She knocked it out of the park.”

To achieve the lofty goal of graduating alongside Melody, Pat would often have to take 5 classes in a semester, and the impressive septuagenarian managed this massive course load like a champ, graduating with her Bachelors in Anthropology and a very impressive 3.79 GPA. She also gained membership into the Lambda Alpha National Anthropology Honor Society.

If one degree wasn’t impressive enough, Pat has already begun work on obtaining a second Bachelors, this time in History.

“Learning never stops,” Pat shared with CNN. “That’s something that my father instilled in me when I was younger. No matter what you do, learning never stops. Even if it’s auditing a few classes, there’s always that option.”

Pat hopes her achievement will inspire other nontraditional students of all ages to never give up on their educational dreams.

Undoubtedly, this dual-graduation will be a memory cherished between grandmother and granddaughter for years to come, and an inspiration to learners of all ages.