GTF Grant Success Story #7: Heather Misemer

When Heather Misemer first graduated from her phlebotomy program at Weatherford College in 2019, she loved her new work and found that it was a great way to get into the medical field and gain some exposure to other areas of medicine in which she might be interested. After her son was born in 2022, Heather decided to go back to school to study sonography. She is currently completing prerequisite classes at Ranger College and plans to apply to the sonography program at Weatherford College in December. If all goes well, she plans to begin her new program in August 2024 and graduate in 2026 with an Associate of Science degree in Sonography.

To prepare for her new program of study, Heather decided to take several prerequisite courses at Ranger College. One of the required classes, Physics, was not available to her as a Summer class at Ranger, and since her financial aid is tied to Ranger College, she couldn’t afford to take this class at another college because she would have had to pay for the class out of pocket. An advisor told her about the option of taking the course through DigiTex digital course sharing powered by Acadeum and helped her to sign up for the class that she needed. Since DigiTex classes are counted as if they were being taken at the student’s Home Institution, this meant that a DigiTex physics course would appear on Heather’s transcript as if she had taken it at Ranger College and would be covered by her existing financial aid. 

Three weeks into her class, she learned that she was not enrolled in the right class. University Physics was the wrong type of physics class to satisfy the prerequisite for her sonography program, and Heather was struggling in this class because she didn’t have the prerequisite classes to be successful. At this point, DigiTex coordinator Gabe Lewis stepped in to help Heather find and enroll in the correct Physics class, and she is now on track to complete this class in August and apply to Weatherford College’s sonography program in December. 

Although Physics 1401 has also been a challenging class, Heather has found it to be a positive experience overall. Because she’s taking a Summer class, she has found the material to be quite condensed, with a great deal of content covered in a short amount of time; but she is holding her own and is finding the class to be well-organized and navigable. She’s not sure yet how this class will relate to her future studies in sonography, but she said that it’s always good to learn new things! Heather said that she highly recommends taking classes through DigiTex, and she advises future students to make sure that they organize their time well to help them succeed in the classes. And good luck in your studies as well, Heather!