Despite challenges, grad kept goal at forefront

Stefano Carrera didn’t think he’d last at North Idaho College.

One day, early in his NIC career, the stress got to him. He was sitting in class, trying to finish a math test, when his eyes started playing tricks on him. He couldn’t understand the numbers in front of him; they twisted and morphed into hieroglyphics.

“I basically almost had a nervous breakdown,” Carrera said.

He got up and left the classroom, certain he couldn’t handle the stress of being a 41-year-old college student of color, taking classes he didn’t want to take, just to get a degree that would allow him to do a job he’d been doing for 20 years.

But outside he ran into an NIC administrator who asked if anything was wrong and helped him calm down.

That was about two years ago. Now Carrera, a U.S. and Swiss citizen from the island nation of Trinidad and Tobago, is one of the more than 750 people graduating from the community college this semester.

He earned an associate’s degree from NIC this term and expects to complete his bachelor’s degree at Lewis-Clark State College by the beginning of next year.

But Carrera said he won’t take part in this morning’s graduation ceremony. He doesn’t want to wear the cap and gown, and he’s afraid he’ll stick out in a crowd of young adults.

Carrera is blunt in describing the generation gap he feels.

“Here I am, at least 20 years of security experience, and I’m having to go to school with a bunch of kids, hip-hop pants hanging below their butts, no discipline, boom boxes in the cars, just there to pass time so Mom don’t kick them out or something,” he said.

Carrera spent the past two decades in the international security industry – traveling around the world, making good money, living in exotic places, providing security for high-profile events and famous leaders.

He came to North Idaho on a business venture and enrolled at NIC at the urging of family.

He said he felt he had no other choice.

Despite a wealth of experience as a security consultant, U.S. corporations couldn’t hire him because he didn’t have a college degree.

“This is what I do. This is what I know, and the only way to get it done was to just go to college,” Carrera said. “I had no choice – it was basically a rock and a hard place, and the hard place didn’t look so rough.”

It wasn’t easy.

Carrera had to take courses at NIC he knew he’d never need to know for his job. But he kept on.

“You’re being forced to somehow, but no one’s forcing you physically,” he said. “You’re forcing yourself because of something you want to accomplish.”

He said he never adjusted to the culture shock he felt moving to North Idaho, he said. “I just learned to ignore it more.”

North Idaho’s topography and landscape suited him, but he wasn’t aware how deeply religious many residents are here. To Carrera, some churches seem too set in their ways, ignoring what religion is really about.

“That’s really the thing I don’t like about Idaho – the sort of extremist take on something that’s supposed to be open-hearted and open-minded,” he said.

“I had some trouble in the beginning,” Carrera continued, including some racism.

But he said he had support from not just his friends and family, but from the NIC community.

Professors understood his situation and were willing and eager to help, he said.

He had support – enough that he felt comfortable taking 10 days off from school to help in the Hurricane Katrina relief effort last fall.

Carrera traveled to New Orleans with an NIC professor to help friends from the security industry do work such as recovering classified documents for private companies.

He plans to stay in North Idaho and pursue security consultant work here, but he also expects his degrees will open up doors once sealed shut.

“You can go anywhere from here.”