Latonya Johnson and her daughter Laila Birchett have a lot in common. They live together in North Brunswick, they attend Rutgers University and they share the same major. Their next milestone will take place next month when they walk down the aisle together, as they both graduate from the Rutgers School of Social Work.
“My family – my kids, my mom and dad – everyone is proud because it’s two generations going to college together,” Johnson says. “I never thought in a million years I’d be going to school with my daughter and graduating in the same college and major. It’s kind of surreal but it has brought us closer because we connected on a level that I never thought I’d connect with my kids.”
Johnson, 43, and Birchett, 21, transferred to Rutgers in September 2022 from Middlesex College and Montclair State University, respectively.
At the time, Birchett was a psychology major but wasn’t sure what to do with her career, other than knowing she wanted to help the homeless or the elderly. Johnson was already a certified drug and alcohol counselor, but she wanted to complete her education.
“My first college course was in 1999,” says Johnson, a recently divorced mother of six, whose children range in age from 26 to 4. “From 1999 to now, I’ve attempted to go back six different times, but I was unsuccessful. I didn’t have the proper time management because I’m a wife, I’m a mother, I’m working full-time.”
She realized the only way to finish her education was to go back to school full-time, so she found a part-time job, but that meant less income plus student loan debt. So, she needed to find a school that offered an accelerated program in social work where students can obtain their master’s degrees within a year of graduating. As she started going on college tours, her daughter came along. Johnson settled on Rutgers because it is close to her North Brunswick home and she already worked at Rutgers at the suicide prevention Hopeline. At the same time, Birchett learned more about the field of social work and decided that was her new route.
When Birchett attended a program for transfer students, she learned about Douglass College. She encouraged her mom to join, and they both ended up with the same mentor, Madinah Elamin, senior director of diversity, equity, and inclusion at Douglass, who told Johnson about scholarships, helped her with class schedules and setting goals, and introduced her to the Bunting Program for non-traditional students.
In their time at Rutgers, they took only one class together and they rarely studied together because of their schedules. But, Birchett was there to give her mother tech support, and Johnson offered her daughter real-life experience.
The duo has a similar GPA: Johnson with 4.0, and Birchett with 3.9. They both plan to enter the Master of Social Work program at Rutgers later this year.
“I’m making a 4.0 and I’m proud,” Johnson says. “I remember one time someone said to me, ‘Nobody cares about the GPA nowadays,’ and I said, ‘For me, that means everything because you don’t know my story.’ It matters to me. There is so much behind that. I know how far I’ve come and what it will mean for my family.”
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