COVID-era scholarship program helped graduating NMC student turn life, career around

May 5—TRAVERSE CITY — When Sarah Sergent, 39, was growing up in Tawas, she knew she wanted to find a job that combined engineering with her love for the water.

It took some time, but that opportunity eventually opened up to her through Northwestern Michigan's Marine Technology program.

Sergent got the incentive to go back to school once the pandemic hit, and found the resources to do so, in part, through the state's Futures for Frontliners scholarship program. The scholarship, implemented in the summer of 2020, offered tuition assistance to people who had worked as essential workers during the pandemic.

Now, Sergent is graduating from the Marine Tech program with a 3.95 grade point average, multiple honors, and a contract job lined up as a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) technician.

On Thursday evening, she was named Marine Technology Student of the Year.

"I'm really proud," she said.

Before starting the program, she was worried she might be too old, she said.

"I wasn't sure my brain was even spongy anymore, that I could even retain information. I thought maybe I just wasn't smart enough for college," she said. "[I was] absolutely terrified, and through this whole process, I learned a lot about myself and the things that I'm capable of."

Sergent is one of the roughly 200 graduates who are expected to graduate from Northwestern Michigan College during this weekend's spring commencement ceremonies.

Ceremonies will take place from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Saturday at the Milliken Auditorium. The three ceremonies are grouped by degree or credential earned, according to the college.

Sergent's dream job didn't exist when she first went to college roughly 20 years ago, she said.

She originally attended Saginaw Valley State University on a pole vaulter's scholarship.

But, when she fractured her L5 vertebra at the end of her first year, she lost that scholarship and dropped out, she said.

That led to a spiral of mental health struggles and substance abuse in the years that followed. She began the difficult work of recovery shortly before the age of 29, and eventually gained certifications as a recovery and health coach by 2014.

But, even as she guided others toward achieving their goals, she knew she still had goals of her own left to pursue.

"I've always said 'Oh, someday — I'm gonna go back someday,'" she said. "And then finally, a couple years ago, it was like, 'All right, I'm going to do it. Instead of helping everyone else, I'm actually going to take this step for myself.'"

On her first day of classes, she was out on the college's 56-foot vessel, the Northwestern, using ROVs — the equipment she now specializes in — to take sonar readings and footage of shipwrecks at the bottom of the bay.

"I was absolutely blown away," she said. "I just instantly fell in love and instantly felt like this is exactly the type of thing I want to do."

Since then, she's been awarded a "holy-grail internship" with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, famous for its historical footage of the wreck site of the RMS Titanic.

Last summer, she was with that team studying the Axial Seamount, an underwater volcano off the coast of Oregon. She'll be back with that team again this summer for an extended internship.

Plus, in a week, she'll be flying out to Hawaii for her first contract job with the Ocean Exploration Trust.

Sergent said she feels grateful for the guidance offered by NMC, as well as the support of Hans VanSumeren and John Lutchko, director and manager, respectively, of the Great Lakes Water Studies Institute.

Sergent was one of more than 120,000 Michiganders who applied for the Futures for Frontliners program in the early months of its implementation. Nearly 16,000 of those applicants were enrolled in classes with a semester completed through their local community college in 2021, according to the state.

Prior to enrolling at NMC, Sergent said she never could have imagined finding herself in a career she loves so much, offering her financial stability and the ability to travel. And she said she's proud to be breaking into a field that has been a majority male-dominated for most of its history.

"I'm a big promoter of hope," she said. "You don't even know the things that you're capable of."