Story By: Amanda Boothe

MONTEVALLO, Ala. – Coming to the University of Montevallo has not been the easiest journey for Trudy Crowson. Through grieving the loss of someone major in her life, taking care of her daughter and changing her major a few times, Crowson has finally found her passion is Mass Communication. After many years of hardship, she has continued to strive for her ambitions.

After a few years off from school Crowson then decided to give it another try by slowly taking more and more classes. “I thought I would just give it another try and if now is the time,” She said. “I tried taking classes in my 20s, but I let things distract me too easily. I wasn’t ready for all the commitment of taking classes.” It was actually one specific class that motivated her to come back to school and give it a strong chance again.

“I took the Nature of Mathematics with [Dr. Scott] Varagona, when I got into that it just reopened everything for me.” Crowson said.

I didn’t look back,” Crowson said. “I just couldn’t beleive it was happening.”

Trudy Crowson

When she first returned to school she was slowly taking classes and was only taking one class a semester. Over time, she took more and more classes. But then her world was shifted when her mother got sick and passed.

“My mom got sick with cancer… I didn’t drop out; I just rode around with the papers on my dashboard for a week going to drop out.”

Crowson took some time off from school so she could be there for her mother and started school again when she was ready.

“I started back again after she passed,” she said. “I was taking stuff here and there. Dr. Ozley actually just told me to go ahead and graduate, so ever since then I have been really going at it.”

But these are not the least of her troubles while trying to pursue her career. Crowson switched between a few majors here when she was trying to figure out what to do.

“I went undecided for a while, then I did American Sign Language because of my daughter then I tried Family Consumer Science” “I did not like it. ” Crowson said.

After a lot of time and taking classes, she knew she needed to do something more, not just for herself but for her family. She decided to start branching out more to different career opportunities. She knew if something were to happen to her husband, she would not be able to take care of her daughter by staying at home and being a house cleaner.

Crowson found herself looking on Indeed and finding things she knew she would like to do. Then, she started looking at the qualifications she needed for these jobs.

“I ended up taking a photography class so I could learn how to take a nice photo to put items online, and I totally fell in love with that, she said. “So that led into taking a second one and third one.”

After she found her love for photography, she started taking more Mass Communication classes, and all her goals were lining up in place. She switched her major and found out she could even graduate early.

“I didn’t look back,” Crowson said. “I just couldn’t believe it could be happening.”

Now that she found her passion, she started branching out and has started doing things she could’ve never imagined, including working and filming for DCTV at Dragon Con.

“Combing my nerdy love with this it was amazing, and I made all these other connections that I wouldn’t have made. It’s awesome.”

Crowson has continued to stay strong and pursue her goals after everything she has been through, she has finally found her calling and is not letting anything stand her way.

Crowson in Dr. Colfield’s class getting hands-on experience.