A Harrisburg man is fulfilling his late mother’s wish to get his degree after he left college more than 20 years ago and struggled with substance abuse for a decade.
David Kern Jr., 44, graduated in May with a bachelor’s degree he earned online through Penn State World Campus while working as a counselor at a Harrisburg halfway house. He’d like to go to graduate school and become a licensed therapist.
“I have this amazing future now that I never would’ve expected or dreamt of in my entire life,” Kern said. “I never dreamed I would be graduating and walking across the stage, and it’s because of Penn State.”
Kern lost his mother, who had been in declining health from dementia, in early April, just weeks before graduation. Years ago, after he got sober, she told him it was her dream that all three of her children graduate from college. He was the only one who had not.
With Penn State, Kern majored in human development and family studies, a fit that was perfect for him because he was able to study topics close to him, like substance use and the declining health of a family member.
“The degree has done a lot more than just teaching me what to do for my job,” Kern said. “It also helped prepare my family and me for how to deal with our mother’s declining health.”
He was able to get his Penn State degree while living and working in Harrisburg because, as an online learner, he had the flexibility to work and do his course work when it was convenient for him each week.
Kern was a music major in college after he graduated high school in 1998. He experienced burnout, partied more and more, and eventually left college.
He said his life spiraled into drug and alcohol addiction, and he thought he would never get back to college. It got so bad that his family staged an intervention in 2007, giving him a wake-up call to get clean.
Kern decided to go back to school after a confluence of events: the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, a cancer scare, and the start of his mother’s decline. He was working as a manager for a bookstore and wanted to change his life by finishing his degree.
When he got his acceptance letter from Penn State, he was shocked.
“All the sudden, Penn State sends me a letter saying I got in, and I was blown away,” he said.
He said he enrolled in school full-time so he could graduate as soon as possible.
Kern will take some time off to work before he pursues graduate school to become a licensed therapist.
Learn more about the degrees offered online through Penn State World Campus.