Improbable journey carries Zeigler from GTCC GED graduate to student success coach

“An advisor stopped me in the hallway and held me accountable, and that changed my life,” she says. “Since then, I’ve wanted to be that light for someone else."

Vernita Zeigler’s journey to a career at Guilford Technical Community College started as a bumpy ride but quickly turned into what dreams are made of.

She was a self-described, difficult teenager who struggled in high school. She moved between schools before landing in GTCC’s GED program, after eventually being expelled from high school.  Fast forward to today, and you’ll find Ziegler in her office on GTCC’s Greensboro campus, where she serves as a student success coach who has reached the goal she set for herself more than two decades ago.

During the early stages of her time in the GED program at GTCC, Zeigler was prone to wandering hallways instead of attending class. It was during one of those breaks from the classroom she bumped into someone who changed her life and gave her a goal she strived toward for the next two decades.

“One of the college’s advisors, Alice Jordan, crossed my path,” said Zeigler. “I went to class when I wanted to and she saw me in the hallway one day and said, ‘what are you doing’ and sent me back to class. After that, she started checking on me once a week. That extra push went a long way to finishing my GED. I wanted to give her a good report every week.”

Jordan made a surprise appearance at Zeigler’s GED graduation ceremony and provided another boost to her educational trajectory.

“I was so excited. I was the first in my immediate family to finish high school,” said Zeigler. “It was such a big accomplishment. I remember running into her (Jordan) and telling her. She said, ‘now what are you going to do?’ She explained about continuing at GTCC and getting an associate degree and what I could do. I had no idea.”

Zeigler’s parents were hard-working people but knew little about navigating higher education and all the benefits available.

“I didn’t know there was something called financial aid until my second year. My mother got a second job to pay for that first year. Now that I know so much about it, how did I not know? But when you come from a family that didn’t graduate from high school, and had no one to guide you, you have to depend on people outside of your network.”

Zeigler decided on an office system technology program and received an associate degree two years later. Before she could receive the degree, though, she had to serve 160 hours of co-op work. She chose to work in the career services department, a move that cemented her stay at GTCC.

“Once I finished those 160 hours, they asked me to come back part time. I remember my boss saying, ‘if you worked that hard for us for free, we can only imagine the kind of work you’d do if we paid you.’

“I was an assistant to a lady who had been working there for 30 years. She took me under her wing, taught me how to dress, how to conduct myself.”

Eventually, when her boss changed jobs in 2006, Zeigler stepped into that role, a role that changed over time and eventually brought her into the student success center. All the while, Zeigler continued pursuing higher education, receiving a bachelor's degree from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 2024. She will begin a master’s program at University of North Carolina at Pembroke this fall.

This spring, on April 14, she was named a student success coach, the fruition of years of hard work, commitment and keeping her goal in sight.

“An advisor stopped me in the hallway and held me accountable, and that changed my life,” she says. “Since then, I’ve wanted to be that light for someone else. I never understood how this was going to happen, but I had this burning desire to do it.”