At 99 years old, Doreetha Daniels has accomplished what 43 percent of other Americans have never done: go to college and get her degree.
Daniels has lived through some of the greatest moments in U.S. history: the Great Depression, Word War II, the Civil Rights movement, the first man landing on the moon, and the birth of the Internet and the digital age. All that pales in comparison to the way she feels about finally getting her piece of parchment with her name printed across the front.
According to reports, Daniels is the oldest graduate ever in the history of the College of the Canyons in Santa Clarita, California. She started her journey to getting her associate degree in social sciences in 2009. The then 93-year-old grandmother said that she was tired of regular hobbies such as ceramics, painting, stained glass, or jewelry making and wanted to "finish her education to better herself."
Her journey was not without its extremely difficult and rocky hurdles to overcome. Daniels had to deal with personal, emotional and health issues such as multiple strokes that led to hearing and sight issues, which also led to the revocation of her driver's license.
She persevered and became a regular student at the school's Tutoring and Learning Center in order to keep up with her intensive college-level math and statistics subjects.
Huge congrats to Doreetha Daniels! https://t.co/6wqopFf3LV pic.twitter.com/XK3yXaN8xD
— For Harriet (@ForHarriet) June 7, 2015
At the graduation ceremony, Daniels said that the moment was a dream come true and the product of her hard work and resilience. As she stood at the podium and faced her fellow graduates, who were mostly 18- to 24-year-olds, she had these words of wisdom to share:
"Don't give up. Do it. Don't let anybody discourage you. Say that, 'I'm going to do it,' and do it for yourself."
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