‘I can do hard things:’ Wife, mother, guardsman Madison Gomez graduates with honors
For Honors College graduate Madison Gomez, receiving a college diploma involved much more than crossing a stage or moving a tassel. It was an act of discipline, perseverance and sheer will — accomplished while she was facing some of the most significant changes of her life.
A native of Guyton, Georgia, Gomez began her college education in the fall of 2019 as an engineering student at Georgia Southern. While she enjoyed her studies, her love of the military led her to join the Georgia Air National Guard after just one semester of college. Her plan was to complete the required boot camp and technical training and afterward return to her studies at Georgia Southern.
She looked forward to the adventure of the military, seeing new places and meeting new people. Her plans changed, however, when the COVID-19 pandemic closed down the world.
“I was a week away from graduating boot camp when they’re like, ‘Hey, there’s this thing called COVID and you can’t have a graduation,’” she said. “‘None of your families can come and it’s affecting your grandparents.’ So that was really nerve-wracking.”
She returned home briefly before moving to Biloxi, Mississippi, where from April to October she and her fellow soldiers didn’t leave the base once due to COVID. She was embedded with her them 24 hours a day, seven days a week for six months in school and training. When it was time to return to Georgia Southern in spring 2021, Gomez says the adjustment was difficult.
“I was doing school in Mississippi, but it was a different kind of school,” she said. I was only doing school for about an hour or two a day, and then the rest of it was learning how to be a service member…. When I got back to Georgia Southern and was thrown in all these classes, away from the same people that I just spent six months of my life with. It was really challenging.”
Soon after she acclimated to school, Gomez experienced yet another life-changing event. Over the summer, she married her boyfriend, Erick, a marine stationed in California. She joined him there and continued taking her engineering classes online.
Because she couldn’t complete her technical, hands-on engineering degree online, and because she didn’t want to leave Georgia Southern, Gomez decided to change her major. She decided to pursue criminal justice and criminology with a minor in psychology, a career path she’d never considered but always desired.
“I grew up watching CSI whenever I was in school,” she said. “I never thought that could be a job for me growing up.
“Also, I wasn’t sure if I was really interested in becoming an engineer,” she added. “I was doing well at school, but it just wasn’t captivating my interest as much as it did before. And I just had a whole year of stepping away from college and having other life experiences and meeting different people, so it definitely changed my mindset and my priorities.”
After changing her degree, Gomez’s husband deployed, so she went back home to Georgia. There, in the summer of 2022, she pursued her new interests, and with the help of the Honors College, she got an internship through the Georgia Department of Corrections and their criminal investigation division.
“I spent the summer with special agents, and we did a lot of interviews with the inmates in the prisons, and we worked a lot with evidence,” she said. “It was really interesting and really eye-opening.”
After her husband returned from deployment, Gomez returned to California, where she could finish her online courses and wrap up her honors thesis. However, just a year later she began the most consequential change in her life — motherhood. Born in October 2023, Gomez’s newborn son, Alex Santiago, has been an exciting — and exhausting — addition to her life and education.
“I definitely underestimated how much he would want mom and not dad,” she said with a laugh. “Finding time has been hard. At the end of the day when he’s sleeping, I’m exhausted. I’m physically done with the day.”
So, how does this wife, new mother and Guardsman handle it all? Gomez says the Honors College at Georgia Southern has been a large part of her success. Professors such as Laurie Gould, Ph.D., in the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology were extremely helpful to her — especially on her honors thesis, which took her almost two-and-a-half years to complete.
“We would meet on Zoom every week to do this,” she said. “And it just made me feel like what I was doing mattered. I wasn’t just checking off boxes.”
On top of this help was Gomez’s dogged determination to meet the deadlines, no matter what.
“I didn’t tell all my professors that I was having [a baby] and my mindset was, ‘Well, it doesn’t matter,’” she said. “I have to graduate, and I’m very deadline motivated. And I knew if I got empathy from professors that would give me extensions upon extensions, it wouldn’t get done. I need to have the deadline.”
Gomez stayed in California instead of walking on the commencement stage, but the journey has been just as meaningful. Her parents are coming for the holidays to visit their 10-week-old grandson. Gomez plans to remain in California for another year and then return to Georgia as her husband’s service duties end. She says she’s convinced him to join the Air National Guard with her for the rest of his service.
Back in Georgia, she plans to explore law enforcement, possibly commissioning into the Georgia Air National Guard as an officer. No matter the path she chooses, one thing is for sure — whatever comes her way, she knows she can do it.
“One of the affirmations that I’ve been saying to myself, especially this last half of the semester, is ‘I can do hard things,’” she said. “So I really want people to get that, too. You can do hard things. You can do it.”
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