Overcoming years of adversity leads St. Jacob single mother to Pennsylvania State University
Schellenger
By Bruce Darnell • Ariel Schellenger, 35, started school at Southwestern Illinois College in 2009. She never finished, and in the years since has had two children. But, after a series of personal struggles, she started working on improving her situation. Last year she went back to school at Bryant & Stratton College, and less than a year later, she’s set to transfer to Pennsylvania State University.
“I had panic attacks for two years straight, so bad I couldn’t even get out of bed,” Schellenger said. “Then I looked at myself one day and I said, ‘This is not who I want my children to look up to. I’m not a role model.’ And that’s why I went back to school.”
Schellenger doesn’t plan to stop at Penn State. She said she wants to become an advocate for those who are unseen, which is why she’s enrolling in the university’s labor and human resources program. When she’s done, she wants to do community outreach in St. Jacob and intends on seeking out leadership positions in local government.
She’s doing all this while remaining in St. Jacob as her schooling is online. Also while doing her school work, which earned her a spot on the dean’s list for maintaining a 4.0 GPA, she has been taking care of her two children, one of whom is homeschooled.
Along with the responsibilities of being a mother, Schellenger has faced some serious challenges. She suffers from what she called “the trifecta,” a trio of chronic illnesses that include mast cell activation syndrome, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome and Ehlers-Danlos syndrome.
She also had to have two surgeries last year. One in June that removed her teeth and another during her schooling that left her bedridden for nearly three months as she recovered, which was somewhat alleviated with the help of her parents.
Yet despite all this, she maintained her 4.0 GPA and continued receiving awards for academic excellence. Her struggles are partly what inspired her to start working in the community.
“I know what it feels like to not have support and I don’t want anybody to struggle like I did if I can help it. I want to be that support for other people,” Schellenger said.
She initially went to Bryant & Stratton College to study forensic photography, as it mixed two of her passions together, photography and shining light on the unseen. But she later decided to swap to human and social services after half a year.
Michael Beedy, an adjunct professor at Bryant & Stratton, praised Schellenger for her dedication in his classes.
“At the beginning of school, she was going through a lot of personal stuff and she started to fall a bit behind,” Beedy said. “But she reached out to explain things, said she’ll get back on track—she knocked it out of the park.
“When the dust settled, she was at the top of the class. She made every deadline, and in our discussion boards she’d interact with me and the other students … If she got a B on an assignment, she’d ask how to make it an A. She’s got a kind of determination I don’t get to see very often … it was a pleasure teaching her.”
