When Shay-Juan Bascome graduates from the Bermuda College today his proud mother will be right there with him, literally.

Colette Riley, 42, and son, Mr Bascome, will be graduating together. Mrs Riley has earned a certificate in office skills, and Mr Bascome will receive an Associate degree in education.

Mrs Riley, who is an office assistant at Electronic Services, said she initially started taking courses at the college to encourage her son.

“When I came to the Bermuda College I wanted to brush up on my skills,” she said. “The first year at the Bermuda College wasn’t a good year for Shay-Juan, and I thought if I started taking classes, it would inspire him.”

And Mr Bascome embraced the idea of his mother taking classes, and encouraged her.

But she had her doubts.

“At first I said, ‘what will I do up there with all those children’,” Mrs Riley said. “But Shay-Juan said there were other parents taking classes.”

“I have many non-traditional students in my classes,” said Mr Bascome.

So Mrs Riley was convinced. The first class she took was in business applications and computers. She did very well and felt quite encouraged. Mr Bascome urged her to sign up for a programme at the college.

“I talked to my counsellor to figure out my schedule because I was working two jobs at that time,” said Mrs Riley.

So she enrolled in the office skills certificate programme. However, in 2012, a spanner was thrown into the works when she became pregnant. Her daughter, Zara-Melae was born in November 2012 and that put her educational endeavours on hold for a little bit.

“I had three credits left to do,” she said. “I was determined to go back and complete that.”

Mr Bascome is interested in education for hearing-impaired people. At 13 years old, he taught himself sign language.

“I found other people who also did sign language,” he said. “So they got me very active in signing. I am okay to speak it, but still need to do some work.”

He said he struggled at the Bermuda College in several classes because he often got discouraged. He was also working and that made it hard to find the time and energy to study.

“At mid terms I used to slack right off,” he said. “I would look at my grades and think, ‘I can’t do this’. I stopped attending classes at one point. I have to give credit to my advisor Ru-Zelda Severin (Senior Lecturer, Music). She gave me a lot of encouragement and said you can still do this and get better. You have the potential to do this. I realised I had to ignore the negative feelings and just keep going.”

Having his mom also in college did help. He and his mom often helped each other out. His strength was writing and he would often look over her work and tell her if it sounded right. She would help him with the format of business letters and other things.

Now he is debating whether get a Bachelors in mainstream education or hearing-impaired education. He is currently working at Cafe Ten, and plans to stay there for another couple of years to earn money to go abroad to college.

“I am going to work and save up,” he said. “I am going to take this time to re-evaluate what I want.”

His mother also plans to stay where she is, but said taking the courses at the Bermuda College had given her a huge confidence boost.

“It has really helped me in my present job,” she said. “Even my boss said he has seen a big improvement. I am grateful to my job as they allowed me quiet time to study. It’s hard to study at home when you have a little one.”