Time management is one thing that 24-year-old senior Kendrick Donahoe learned to utilize this year. In order to graduate this Saturday, Donahoe took 29 hours this semester, totaling 63 hours since January.
“I was told by different advisors and deans, they say it’s a school record,” Donahoe, a kinesiology major with a coaching emphasis and RTV minor, said.
However, according to the Registrar’s Office, no records are kept to determine the record for the most hours taken in a semester.
According to Donahoe, he took so many hours because every time he got close to filing for graduation, his advisors found extra classes he needed to take, so this time, he decided to “wipe out the block.”
“I filed for (graduation) in December. I took all the classes they told me I needed for that in the spring and summer to have like, 14 hours in the fall,” Donahoe said. “When summer school ended and fall started, I registered for those classes and I showed my advisor, and he said ‘no, you have to take these and these also.'”
“So I went back, and I found out which classes I could take in correspondence, and I added on all the classes I could,” he said. “It’s time to go. I’m ready to start (graduate) school.”
Donahoe was then taking chemistry 135 and 136 and sociology 381 by correspondence, and 20 hours of classes such as statistics, film appreciation, sociology of sports and geology. In order to do that, he had to get permission from the dean and a letter from his advisor.
In addition to the 29 hours, Donahoe was working between 32 to 40 hours at the LaQuinta Inn, between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m., and taking care of his 20-month-old daughter, Kiari, every other week. Donahoe quit working about a month ago.
“It was hard. The hardest part was not enough rest,” he said. “But I’m the type of person that once I put my mind and say I’m going to do something, I’m not going to stop until I do it. Obstacles kept getting in the way, and I’mI guess you can say subborn; every time something gets harder, it makes me want to do it more and more just to defeat it, just to conquer it. It’s a drive I have; it’s how I was raised.”
Despite the obvious lack of free time, Donahoe said his grades have stayed in the “A’s” and “B’s,” except in statistics, which he said was his “low class.” He said his GPA was around a 2.5 or 2.6.
“My freshman and sophomore year I did a little too much partying and just did enough to get by,” he said. “And then my junior year when I started to buckle down, I realized I did a lot of partying. I made my gradesI never failed out, but it was time to get my grades higher.”
After graduation, Donahoe wants to coach at a high school and get his master’s degree in sports management/sports business to become a sports agent.
“I’m going to grad school, and you get a three year probation (to coach without a teaching certificate), and by the time I finish grad school, I’ll be finished with that,” he said. “A lot of times schools send you to an alternative program where they can get you thatjust like getting a teaching certificate in school, except you go through their program and you can pass the test and get certified. They’ll pay for you to go to grad school, so it’s kind of like in my plan.”
Donahoe said he has already gotten job interviews lined up in the Alief, Aldine, Dallas, Plano and Denton school districts.
“I went to the teacher’s job fair, and I e-mailed (the schools) my resume and my application and everything, and I got some contacts back,” he said.
According to Donahoe, when he hears people complain about their busy schedules, he just laughs.
“I’m saying to myself, ‘If you only knew how busy I was, you’d probably be happy about your schedule,'” he said. “Most people, the first thing they say when they hear I’m taking 29 hours is, ‘You’re crazy. You can’t do that, that’s suicide,’ but I proved that I could do it.”
Donahoe also said he would like to thank the people who helped him to accomplish his goal.
“All the ladies in the Correspondence Office and the students who helped me, I’d like to give them a big thank you,” he said. “They really helped me and worked with me. They didn’t believe I could complete it. That’s what amazed them, they didn’t believe I could finish, and I finished it. I got two ‘A’s’ and a ‘B,’ so they were really proud.”