{"id":70147,"date":"2022-12-14T08:02:24","date_gmt":"2022-12-14T14:02:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=70147"},"modified":"2022-12-14T08:02:26","modified_gmt":"2022-12-14T14:02:26","slug":"longtime-goal-of-graduation-nears-completion-for-dominic-llamas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=70147","title":{"rendered":"Longtime goal of graduation nears completion for Dominic Llamas"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>By UNIVERSITY COMMUNICATIONS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cLearning is continual.\u201d That is the overarching theme Dominic Llamas, 36, has applied not just to his academic success at FHSU but also to his career and family life. Llamas will graduate in December with a B.S. in Information Networking and Technology and a concentration in Information Systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Llamas\u2019s journey to the commencement stage at FHSU has taken many unique turns. At age 18, Llamas was hired to do data entry for the state of Kansas. His supervisors recognized his skills, and he quickly advanced to an Information Technology position.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cBut I felt like there was something missing,\u201d Llamas said. \u201cPart of that was my lack of education compared to my peers who had completed schooling to get a chance at the same job I had. In a sense, I was blessed that way, but I always felt that there was something missing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Llamas attained an associate degree from Allen County in 2014 and soon began an IT position at Stormont Vail Hospital in Topeka. To keep his academic momentum going, he entered FHSU in 2014 but found that the time constraints of learning a new job, a full-time load of college coursework, and the demands of a growing family impacted his academic success. He decided to discontinue his coursework and focus on his family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Throughout the next few years, Llamas felt the gentle nudging of the goal he had set early on of achieving a bachelor\u2019s degree. So, in the spring of 2021, he resumed his degree program at FHSU.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI always stressed with my kids that if you set a goal to do something, you\u2019re going to finish it out,\u201d Llamas said. \u201cWhether that be sports or academics or club, or whatever it is. I can\u2019t preach to my kids that you should do something and not follow through with it. To me, schooling was my end goal.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>His kids are ages 14, 11, and 6 and are active in music and sports. Llamas has found that his ability to juggle a tight schedule has helped ensure his family\u2019s development and growth aren\u2019t impacted by his coursework.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI guess busy is an understatement,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve had many mornings where it\u2019s like 3, 4, a couple of times 5 a.m., and I\u2019m still trying to wrap coursework up and go to sleep for a couple of hours so I can go into work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Offering wisdom to future and current FHSU online students, Llamas said it is important to read each course syllabus. Without face-to-face contact, students must work harder to determine what is expected in their classes and reach out to instructors to get the needed feedback.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cYou have to be willing to learn new skills and interact with people from different backgrounds, and most importantly, take constructive criticism,\u201d he said. \u201cSometimes you need to take a step back and be willing to let all these things happen. Be able to approach things with an open mind.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He said he appreciates his FHSU professors who have challenged him to meet difficult expectations. Meeting those challenges, he said, assists him not just academically but also in his daily life. He believes this is a way that professors communicate to their students their desire for their students to do well and excel in life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Llamas is considering pursuing a master\u2019s degree. An M.B.A. in Management, he said, would help prepare him for a future role in management where he could pass on his skills to others to help them grow as better IT employees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cLearning for me is continual,\u201d he said. \u201cJust because I finished my bachelor\u2019s, I don\u2019t think I stop pushing myself to learn more.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By UNIVERSITY COMMUNICATIONS \u201cLearning is continual.\u201d That is the overarching theme Dominic Llamas, 36, has applied not just to his academic success at FHSU but&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11722],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-press-releases"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=70147"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70147\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70148,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70147\/revisions\/70148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=70147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=70147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=70147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}