Rachel White was supposed to speak at her high school graduation.
She was class president, one of 58 students in the Class of 2020, and had already been chosen as a speaker when COVID changed the ceremony. Then Basic Training changed the timeline again.
White had enlisted in the Iowa National Guard and had a military obligation that summer. Her classmates eventually walked across an outdoor stage, spaced apart during the pandemic.
White recorded her speech from the basement of her parents’ home.
“I was the only person who wasn’t able to attend graduation,” White said.
Six years later, she took the walk she missed.
White completed her Associate in Arts from Eastern Iowa Community Colleges (EICC) in December. She chose to walk with her
peers during the May 15 Commencement Ceremony for the Muscatine campus.
“Being able to walk across the stage and give my parents the opportunity to see me do that was really exciting,” White said.
The years between those two graduations did not move in a straight line. White first pictured herself going straight to a university to study business, multimedia, cameras, and marketing. Instead, military training delayed her start, and she later accepted a full-time position with the Iowa National Guard in Des Moines.
She was 19 and working on the Guard’s marketing team.
“I had no experience. I was a 19-year-old kid. I was just interested in cameras. They took me on. They taught me everything,” White said.
At the same time, she tried to carry too much at once: full-time work, full-time community college classes, military service, a new apartment, a new city, and adulthood.
It caught up with her.
White dropped the spring 2021 semester and took a step back from college. But she never walked away from the goal.
“Quitting was never part of the plan,” White said. “I never thought I would not finish my degree. It was always: I’m going to get my degree, even if it’s one class at a time. It just may take five or six years.”
That goal mattered for more than one semester. White would be the first person in her family to earn a college degree, and she already had her next step in mind. She kept going.
White took distance learning classes through EICC and in-person classes at Des Moines Area Community College while working full time for the National Guard. Later, she moved home, took a civilian job at a bank, and started taking courses on the Muscatine campus.
Attending in-person classes made a difference.
“I learned that was my favorite part of EICC in general, actually getting to know
professors, getting to know my classmates, and treating school as more of an appointment
rather than something I’ll do later,” White said.
Then came deployment. White left for Iraq in May 2025 and finished her final fall
semester online.
Her classroom was wherever she could find a signal: her bunk, the USO, the dining facility, or any spot with Wi-Fi. Sometimes the time difference was eight or nine hours. Sometimes VPN issues, email problems, or unreliable internet made assignments hard to submit.
The mission came first. School had to fit around it.
“Iraq doesn’t have the greatest connectivity. Anytime I was up on the net, I was talking to my professors, letting them know what was going on. They worked with me in an incredible manner,” White said.
Her instructors, especially her marketing professor, kept checking in and helped her stay on track. “At the end of the day, I completed all of my assignments,” she said.
She submitted her last one at the end of the semester in December 2025 and didn’t want to wait five months until commencement to celebrate. She printed a copy of her diploma and put on a graduation cap her boyfriend sent to her in Iraq, and took photos.
“This was six years in the making. I celebrated with my friends, and everybody was just so proud of me, regardless of how long it took me to get my degree,” she said.
That is what White wants other students to understand. The timeline does not matter as much as the finish.
“I think the biggest piece I’ve taken away from my experience is that timelines mean nothing,” White said. “Maybe you’re comparing yourself to your peers, but you really shouldn’t do that. Just keep going.”
She plans to attend the University of Iowa this fall and study marketing at the Tippie College of Business. She is also a full-time photographer and continues to serve in the Iowa National Guard.
Her long-term goal is to work in marketing or public affairs for the National Guard Bureau in Washington, D.C. For now, White is building toward that future through school, photography, and continued service.
Her path to graduation crossed campuses, jobs, countries, time zones, and deployment.
It was not the expected timeline.
It was hers.