Many adults wish they could have graduated from college and received a degree, but juggling their careers, family and personal lives seems like a circus act they would rather not attempt.
Lupita Narkevicius decided to be a juggler.
Narkevicius is the assistant director for P.A.C.E., an accelerated college program at Pierce College that allows students to graduate in about two years. In 2008, Narkevicius went back to college to get her master’s.
Narkevicius was born in Lewistown, Montana, where her dad worked for the Southern Pacific Railroad and her mother was a housewife. Her family moved to Oregon when her father’s job needed him on the West Coast, and then she finally ended up in Southern California at the age of nine.
After high school, she worked for many different businesses. She worked in an insurance company, in claim adjustments, as a supervisor, and in private industry.
“I’ve worn all kinds of hats,” Narkevicius said.
She was a human resource director at her last job for six months, but she said they “played fast and loose with medicare,” so she left to find another job.
When she applied to other jobs as a human resource director, employers told her she did not have the necessary degree for the position. She enrolled at Los Angeles City College and worked on her associate degree while she also served as an instructional aid for two departments.
She found out about a test at the college that could get her a better job and she took it. She ranked top three and was offered a job at Pierce College to work for P.A.C.E.
She graduated from LA City College after earning three associate degrees and came to work in Woodland Hills, where she has been working for nine years.
“I love my job,” Narkevicius said. “It can be stressful, but it is a chance to work with students, especially adults, who want to further their own education.”
She said Arthur Gillis, the director of P.A.C.E., really pushed her to further her education. Narkevicius always wanted to be a teacher and Gillis wanted her to achieve that goal. After she worked at Pierce College for four years, Narkevicius went to California State University, Northridge to get her bachelor’s in business.
“She actually motivated me to motivate her,” Gillis said.
Due to the poor economy at the time, she transferred to Pepperdine University where they had a program to get your bachelor’s and master’s degree at the same time without taking the GMAT test.
She is glad that she transferred because she did not have the time or money needed in order to take the test.
“It was an interesting time,” Narkevicius said. “It was stressful. There were sometimes I would bitch and moan and groan. I was working a full-time job, I was a full-time student. I take my education very seriously and I take my job very seriously. I don’t shortchange either of them.”
When people would ask how she balanced the two, she would say she just had to take it one assignment and one day at a time, and stay with the task and hand. With every semester, she said the light of graduation at the end of the college tunnel grew brighter and brighter.
“She is motivated and she is a hard worker,” said Ryan Son, P.A.C.E. consultant and Narkevicius’ co-worker. “There were times that she wanted to pull her hair out and there were times it was going smooth. It’s hard to go to school and work at the same time. I did that myself.”
After five years of hard work, Narkevicius graduated from Pepperdine University with a bachelor’s in management and a master’s in business administration.
Narkevicius now teaches a business communication class and is excited to be living her dream.
“P.A.C.E. has one of the highest ratios of success in the district among all the colleges and all the programs,” said Gillis. “I can honestly say that much of that is attributable to Lupita’s work ethic and consciousness. She wants the students to succeed.”
Even though Narkevicius does not think she will pursue a Ph.D., she said that she will always continue to learn.
“I am one of those lifetime learners,” she said. “No learning gets wasted. It gets used at one point or another.”
In her free time, she hikes, camps or does something else active, or she reads a new book on her Kindle. She has an hour-long commute to work and uses that time to listen to audiobooks.
However, she loves her career and does not plan to ever retire.
“I haven’t grown up yet,” said Narkevicius. “Retirement is a long way off, and if I did retire, I wouldn’t retire. I might take time off, but I’ll be back and doing something with students.”
