When UAGC graduate Will Smith landed his current job, he didn’t even know he was being considered for a position.
While accompanying his wife on a business trip to Hawaii, Will met and formed connections with several of her colleagues, including the company’s CFO. During the trip, they had a number of organic conversations. Naturally, he mentioned he was pursuing a bachelor’s degree in cyber and data security from the University of Arizona Global Campus (UAGC), also his wife’s alma mater.
They had a wonderful time in Hawaii, but the couple returned home thinking nothing of the interactions Will had while there. Yet, on his first day back in Georgia, Will unexpectedly received an email from the company, and soon after, he began having conversations with other executives. Ultimately, it all initiated a career move – and the catalyst for a major life change.
“Everything happened so fast,” Will says. “I did an interview with someone, and I didn't even know it was an interview. I don't know what I did or said, but whatever it was, I think they were able to feel that I was being genuine.”
Today, Will works as a cybersecurity engineer on the vulnerability management team at Cox Automotive, Inc., where his wife also serves as a director of sales.
At the time he was hired, Will was still many credits away from completing his degree and had little to no knowledge of cybersecurity. Yet the executives saw something special in him, and because Will was putting in the effort and impressed them with his genuine passion and perseverance, they brought him on, created a new position for him, and allowed him to train and learn as he moved forward in the role - while simultaneously earning his degree.
In May 2024, Will finally earned his bachelor’s degree, solidifying his place at Cox and ensuring a bright future.
Now, with one degree under his belt, he has started to pursue a master’s degree at UAGC, and he maintains a family and performs community service to support his momentum of success.
While the path to his current career and lifestyle was fortuitous, Will’s life wasn’t always easy. Nonetheless, he never allowed himself to be a victim of his circumstances.
Turning Adversity into Success
Will’s childhood was not easy, and he recalls his family struggling for food and money as early as three years old. His father was 22 when Will was born, and his mother was just 19. Neither graduated high school, and to Will’s knowledge, neither had a job.
Around age five, Will’s family relocated from the small northern California town of East Palo Alto and to a new home in south San Jose, where for a time he says things were good.
Then something changed. It turned out that his father was making a living selling drugs, and he eventually was caught and served time. Without any money coming in, Will’s mother didn’t have the means to pay the bills.
“My mom struggled,” he recalls. “We didn't have lights for periods of time. I remember boiling hot water on the stove to take a bath.”
The family moved around, living with other family members and ultimately in various shelters. Despite the constant change of environment, Will and his siblings diligently attended school in the south San Jose area. Will’s mother made sure the children stayed in school, though it was a 30-minute drive from any one of their temporary homes.
Since his family didn’t have a car for much of his childhood, Will and his siblings spent hours commuting to and from school on both public transportation and school buses.
“I used to be really upset, going to school every day on a school bus for hours, but I realized that's what kind of shaped me,” he says.
For Will, entering high school meant another move, and his grades fell during his first semester. He regained momentum in the second semester, finishing the year with As. During this time, he discovered he excelled at basketball, which became a primary drive for him to succeed in his coursework.
Will spent a large portion of his secondary education taking full course loads and enrolling in summer school, pushing himself through periods of low motivation to graduate with a 3.6 GPA. Will received offer letters from several universities to play basketball, but when his father failed to drive him to the SAT test as promised, the opportunity passed.
“There was no chance of me taking it, so I kind of gave up on going to college and playing basketball,” he says.
Despite this, he continued to do well in school and became the first in his family to graduate from high school.
“It was a big deal for our family,” he says. “That almost seemed like graduating college at the time, that's how big of a deal they made it.”
By age 19, however, Will’s direction changed. He was kicked out of his home when he couldn’t pay enough rent. After a brief stint of homelessness, he found a room to rent, but eventually, he began to walk down the same path as his father.
“I spent my 22nd birthday behind bars,” he admits.
After his release, Will vowed to leave that life behind.
He met his future wife Jessica, and although there would be a few more bumps along the windy road, they headed down a path of growth, opportunity, and success – for themselves and their eventual family.
Education At Every Stage
Despite a strong work history in the years that followed, Will’s lack of a higher education earlier in life proved to be a detriment during times of job uncertainty. Will and his family eventually left California and moved to Georgia to pursue different career paths and take advantage of a lower cost of living. He didn’t have a job upon arrival, so Will worked as a barber and later at a warehouse, before finally starting a role for a leading cable provider. There, he took advantage of their education benefits while working his way up into a leadership role in the company.
However, due to administrative roadblocks, Will was forced to put his schooling on pause after getting two and a half years into his four-year degree program. The opportunity to continue his education arrived once again in tandem with Will landing his current role at Cox in 2022.
After six months in his new job, Will picked up his classes right where he left off. He marked the completion of his degree in a unique and special way. In June 2024, he walked at commencement with his wife as she earned her second degree from UAGC.
An Inspiration to Others
There is one facet of adulthood, however, that slowed Will down, but never stopped him. He experienced a dependency on alcohol, and notes that his struggles with alcohol were present during pivotal moments in his life.
Will had watched his father hold a strong relationship with alcohol, and his own adulthood was spent moving between periods of drinking and abstaining from alcohol altogether. At a particularly low point, Will crashed his car into a center divider while drinking and driving. The incident landed him in jail. He moved through his sentence quickly but almost lost Jessica as a result.
While he doesn’t credit those circumstances to his decision to quit drinking, it all clicked into place when he woke up one day and decided that “enough was enough.”
“I like to think from that moment that life really started for me,” he explains. “Everything started to change. I didn't think that would ever happen if I hadn't made that change.”
Will has now been sober for eight years. He went through a point of what he calls “divine intervention,” where he realized his mindset and habits were not conducive to success. When he made his commitment to sobriety, his previous employer offered therapy services as a means of support, which he took advantage of to further his journey.
His alcoholism doesn’t define him though, and he uses his past as a reminder of the growth he has experienced and the obstacles he has overcome throughout his life. If not for him, then he’s doing it for his children and family.
“I'm not choosing to hold on to this,” Will says. “I'm choosing to release this back out, and I refuse to pass this on to my children. So that's the key factor for me, it’s knowing that I'm able to break that generational curse, and it stops here. It's not going any further than right here.”
This commitment stuck. Between his work obligations, he also volunteers with sixth and seventh grade students at church every Sunday, passing his beliefs and testimonials onto the next generation as a mentor.
“The key for me has been forgiveness,” Will acknowledges. “I was so jaded during those early years from everything that I went through, but all that weight just came crashing off me. I was able to forgive not just my parents, but myself as well.”
Present-Day Gratitude
Today, Will is continuing his education with a pursuit of a master’s degree at UAGC. He hopes the degree will allow him to move into the benefits space, stating that helping people to achieve their goals is what gives him the most fulfillment. He credits his education for helping him realize that calling.
“UAGC has been instrumental in my progression to where I am today,” he says, “and it's only going to go up from here. I recommend anyone who's contemplating going back to school to just do it. It wasn't until I got to UAGC that everything finally clicked, and I was able to buckle down, and my drive kicked in.”
Above all, his path created a perspective that holds steady in all of his ventures, and looks back on the lessons he’s learned as attitude fuel for his current life.
“It's been a journey,” he says. “We remain humble, we remain faithful. We learned a lot during our journey.”
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Student success stories should not be interpreted as a promise or guarantee of career advancement or future earnings. The stories shared here represent the outcomes of individual students for illustrative purposes only.