To appreciate where Nicole Jordan Williams is today, you have to appreciate where she’s been. Just a few years ago, she was a single mom without a college education, struggling to make ends meet. She was looking for an opportunity — and when she got it, she took it and ran with it.

She found Richland College’s Working Wonders program, which guides single parents, single pregnant women and displaced homemakers through the process of getting an associate degree and re-entering the workforce. It wasn’t easy and it took all of the resources available to her, but soon she was a college student on the way to a better career and life.

“Earning an associate degree in Business Administration has helped me in so many ways in my job as an auto loan funder,” she says. “You have to know management, because you’re dealing with dealerships, credit buyers and customers — all three entities in every deal. Accounting and finance come into it, because you have to do a lot of math to show proof of income, what percentage of your income you can afford to spend on a car loan.

“Doors just open up for you with a degree. The job I’m in now required a minimum education of an associate degree, but the company hired me after I was just halfway through my degree program because I had already proved that I was serious about my education. The flexible scheduling at Richland really helped as I worked full time and was also a single mother to my son.

“I was fortunate to be a part of Richland’s Working Wonders program. You have to keep proving yourself to stay in the program, but that’s the best motivation for a student. They check up on you and make sure that you get rewarded for the things you do right, but the program can drop you if you don’t do what you’re supposed to do. They helped me find a licensed day care provider that was open late and assisted me with the paperwork so that I could feel good about my son’s day care while I went to school.

“My son has been my biggest motivation. I want to tell him, ‘Yes, I finished college, so I know you can do it too.’ My life is so much different and better now. I’m married, for one thing. I’m pursuing a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Phoenix. I have a great job that I love and where I earn a good living.

“But I never could have made it through college as a single mom without the counselors at Richland. I can’t imagine where I’d have been without them. They helped me every step of the way.”

For Nicole Jordan Williams, it all began here.