Grad student won’t be able to stop the tears during commencement

As Monica Solga sits in the Walb Student Union basement telling her story, the person across the table is aghast at some portions. How could anyone overcome so much?

As she stops occasionally to dab her eyes with a tissue, Solga tells of starting her college academic career seven years ago at age 37. She had already survived an abusive childhood and an alcoholic father. Her mother used to take his keys and wallet and sleep in the car with her daughter and son to make sure he wasn’t going out at night. Then they’d peek into the windows to see if he was asleep and if they could sneak back in.

She married young and had two children, but then Solga’s husband left after 18 years. 

“I was starting life over as a single mom,” she said. “I figured I was either going to struggle keeping my life afloat, or I was going to struggle improving life for me and my kids.”

She enrolled at Purdue University Fort Wayne and majored in human services. Solga worked two or three jobs, waitressing, serving as a shift manager in a pizza place, and as a special needs assistant at her kids’ high school. She graduated in 2020, though graduation ceremonies were canceled because of the pandemic.

While also caring for her parents and other relatives battling illnesses, Solga escaped an abusive relationship thanks in part to PFW professor Patricia Eber, now chair of the Department of Human Services, who noticed something different and helped. Then Solga’s mother, who had an artificial heart valve transplant 10 years ago, also got sick and needed liver and kidney transplants.

Somehow Solga got through and never slowed down, and a month after graduation enrolled in graduate school at PFW to become a school counselor. Attending classes year-round for three years, she’s built a 3.98-grade point average.

“She’s somewhat of a leader with her peers because she’s older and they look up to her,” said Joel Givens, assistant professor of counselor education. “She has such a level-headedness about her, she doesn’t get as phased, upset, or worried, and I think that grounds a lot of the students around her. With her experience and background, she always added to the learning in a way that enriched the discussion.”

Sounds like a wonderful success story.

But life kept getting tougher, always more challenging.

There’s so much more, including losing her waitressing job because the restaurant closed, continued financial challenges, and her own five major medical procedures. She’s still healing.

This story isn’t about how Solga is succeeding, it’s about how she didn’t quit when anyone else probably would have.

“There were just a lot of things where I just kept showing up, and I’m still here,” Solga said. “I don’t feel like giving up. Life happens, but you keep going. You keep showing up because that’s the only way you are going to succeed.”

Other than having no choice, how did she prevail? Her son Zander and daughter Zoey are huge inspirations. While she was working at the pizza place and attending college, Blackford High School approached Solga about becoming a school counselor, though she hadn’t graduated, hiring her under an emergency license. 

“I just worked what I needed to survive,” she said. “I started and told myself I didn’t have an option. I won’t quit. There were just lots of life things that kept showing up.”

Not many people know Solga’s story because she can’t slow down long enough to tell it. She’s usually exhausted, afraid if she relaxes she might lose her rhythm and momentum. Once a month she schedules watching a movie with Zoey, but that’s an example of how busy life has been.

Over these last seven years, Solga has compiled a list of movies and TV shows she wants to watch in the future, shows everyone else has already enjoyed. She watched “Stranger Things” while recovering from surgery, but the TV list includes “Game of Thrones,” “Grace and Frankie,” “Emily in Paris,” “New Girl,” “The Watcher,” “You,” “Pretty Little Liars,” “Yellowstone,” and “Lucifer.” She regularly watched “Grey’s Anatomy” but hasn’t seen any episodes since Derek Shepherd died in Season 11—eight seasons ago.

There’s a lot to catch up on, and a life to enjoy again. She can’t even picture what two years from now may look like.

Some recognize her accomplishments, and last year Solga was named a PFW Top 50 student. She’s been nominated again.

But Solga already knows there’s no way she’s getting through graduation without crying, no way to keep her emotions from running down her face.

But for once, they'll only be happy tears.