Enjoying the ride

"If your day starts out bad and you allow it to affect your attitude, then the whole day will be bad," said North Lake College student Judy Faue. "On the flip side, if you don't allow something to affect your attitude, then the balance of the day will be successful."

It is that attitude that brought her to NLC.
"Taking a class at North Lake can rock your world," said the bubbly honor student.

Originally a business major, Faue recently switched her academic plan to forensics biology with a minor in graphic arts after taking an art appreciation class. Her objective is to take something deadly and combine it with a field of beauty, using art to solve crimes, a creative field she has learned a lot about at NLC.

Faue saw her interest evolve in forensics with the abundance of TV crime shows. Forensic studies can take DNA evidence, blood splatters and materials collected at a crime scene, then, using computer graphic arts programs, reconstruct the evidence. Faue sees reconstructing evidence to solve crimes as a way to use art and give back to the community.

The desire to give back to the community results from a long, difficult journey. No stranger to crime, Faue quit school out in the eleventh grade to escape the violence in the hallways of a west Texas school. After she dropped out, she got married to get out of town.

"Marriage was not the answer," she says now. "It didn't last, because it was for the wrong reasons."
As a single mom, Faue struggled to make ends meet, which included the special needs of her two learning-disabled sons.

As a professional temporary worker, she put in long hours on the job for 12 years, helping people who made huge sums of money. Frustration mounted as she watched co-workers advance by continuing their college education in night classes. Supervisors who criticized her work spurred her to improve her world and the world of her sons.

Faue's push toward earning her General Equivalency Degree caused her mother to recognize her efforts and to return to work to allow her daughter to go to college. One of Faue's mottos is, "Education is everything and life is too short to just live to someday check out without accomplishing anything."

Now entering her third year at North Lake, she has achieved much: PTK membership, Student Leadership award, a photo entitled "Zipper," which is published in the fall 2003 Duck Soup, and PTA chairperson for arts and education at J.O. Davis Elementary. She also helped paint the mural in the hallway at NLC.

Even with such a huge load, Faue is upbeat and optimistic. The biggest obstacle she faces is to get her sons through school and to have them graduate on the same level with their peers, a challenge, she says, with their learning disabilities.

At times Faue's days seem too short for all she has to do. Her mother and fiancé help to peers, a challenge, she says, with their learning disabilities. At times Faue's days seem too short for all she hs to do. Her mother and fiance keep her going. Her sons are learning persistence as they watch their mother tackle studies and family life at full throttle.
"Being a role model for them is my highest goal," Faue said.