{"id":16204,"date":"2012-09-21T11:31:55","date_gmt":"2012-09-21T15:31:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/?p=16204"},"modified":"2012-10-09T11:13:27","modified_gmt":"2012-10-09T15:13:27","slug":"foster-background-work-ethic-yields-success-for-wright-state-student","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/2012\/09\/21\/foster-background-work-ethic-yields-success-for-wright-state-student\/","title":{"rendered":"Foster background, work ethic yields success for Wright State student"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Jessica Lane credits her success largely to the motivation instilled in her by her foster grandmother.<\/p><\/div>\n

She spent 10 years in foster care. Her father died when she was 13. She lived in a rented room and with friends during her senior year of high school, which was a blur of classes, homework, drill-team practices and late-night waitressing.<\/p>\n

Jessica Lane\u2019s road to Wright State University was a bumpy one.<\/p>\n

But today, the bubbly, irrepressible Lane has a bachelor\u2019s degree in psychology, a job at Kettering Medical Center and is training her sights on earning a Ph.D.<\/p>\n

\u201cWright State helped me achieve so much,\u201d Lane said.<\/p>\n

Lane got an early life lesson in independence.<\/p>\n

A divorce and custody battle between her parents sent the 3-year-old Lane and her 1-year-old sister, Rachel, to a series of foster homes. Three years later, the two landed in a foster home on a farm in New Paris, Ohio, 40 miles northwest of her Dayton home.<\/p>\n

Lane called it \u201cthe middle of nowhere,\u201d but flourished in what was a caring environment created by her \u201cfoster grandmother\u201d that gave her responsibility and security.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had horses, cows, goats, dogs, cats, and we took care of them all,\u201d Lane recalled. \u201cThere was not a day during the summer that she didn\u2019t have us out doing something. I learned a lot about taking care of the farm.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Lane\u2019s father died after a bout with lung and liver cancer, the 13-year-old Lane and her sister moved to Xenia to live with their mother, who worked various restaurant and other jobs to support the family.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re talking poverty level,\u201d Lane recalled.<\/p>\n

At 15, Lane started mowing lawns and doing odd jobs to earn money. When she was 17, she began working at a fast-food restaurant and also landed an internship at a computer software company.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a great way for me to get my feet wet in the professional world,\u201d Lane said. \u201cIt was actually what made me decide that I really, really needed to go to college and do something like this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two weeks into her senior year at Xenia High School\u2014at age 18\u2014Lane moved out of her mother\u2019s home.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe really didn\u2019t know each other very well, I guess,\u201d Lane said. \u201cI\u2019d grown apart from her. I had 10 years away from her.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lane moved in with the family of her color guard instructor, paying $50 a month to rent a spare bedroom. She later lived with friends.<\/p>\n

The school year was a blur.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was hectic, like whirlwind crazy,\u201d Lane recalled.<\/p>\n

Up at 6 a.m., at school by 7:30 a.m., drill-team practice after school until 5 p.m., four hours of waitressing, then homework until midnight or later.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t even describe to you the number of times I was sitting home thinking, \u2018Oh, God. I\u2019m not going to be able to get all of this homework done. I\u2019m so tired. I just want to go to sleep. I can\u2019t do it,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cThen there would be the times when I\u2019d say, \u2018No. I\u2019ve got this. I can do this.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Lane\u2019s hopes of going to college had died. She couldn\u2019t afford it\u2014or so she thought.<\/p>\n

The mother of one of Lane\u2019s friends encouraged her to apply for scholarships and took her to financial aid meetings with college representatives.<\/p>\n

A meeting with a Wright State official coupled with letters of support from her high school teachers resulted in her being accepted at Wright State as an independent student because of her family situation. A generous financial aid package was included.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was so elated,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was so exciting to know I could go to college.\u201d<\/p>\n

Graduating in the top third of her high school class, Lane would be the first member of her family to attend college.<\/p>\n

She initially majored in nursing, but switched to psychology after realizing she was more interested in the psychology side of caring for patients.<\/p>\n

Lecturer Patricia Schiml, Ph.D., said Lane really shined in her human behavioral endocrinology capstone class. Lane\u2019s final paper and presentation dealt with how the stressors of foster care can impact hormonal and neural function in such a way that the children are more prone to depression as adults.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know that Jessica’s childhood experiences contributed to her choice of a topic, and I think it’s wonderful when a student can see how science relates to their life in personal fashion,\u201d Schiml said. \u201cIt’s that \u2018catch\u2019 that I hope all students experience at some point when engaging in scientific discovery.\u201d<\/p>\n

Besides typically carrying 16 credit hours, Lane worked up to 40 hours a week\u2014both as a dietary aide at Kettering Medical Center and at the campus art gallery, where she set up and took down exhibits. She graduated with a 3.3 GPA and as a member of Psi Chi, the international psychology honors society.<\/p>\n

Lane would like to go to graduate school and earn her Ph.D. in psychology or social work. She is currently working at Kettering\u2014where she was named Employee of the Month for August\u2014and is on the lookout for internships.<\/p>\n

Lane credits her success largely to the motivation instilled in her by her foster grandmother.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was a wonderful influence in my life,\u201d Lane said. \u201cThe biggest thing is she was so persistent. She just kept after me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jessica Lane credits her success largely to the motivation instilled in her by her foster grandmother. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":16205,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[733,2040,725,715,746,719],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-giving","category-home-news-sidebar","category-news","category-science-mathematics","category-special-categories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16204"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16210,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16204\/revisions\/16210"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}