Full-time mother, manager and master’s degree student, Seantinque (Seanti) Parks encountered many struggles and obstacles along her path to career success. Sometimes she waivered, other times she stopped dead in her tracks, and recently, with a little push from Cleary and her father, she chose the fast lane as she closes in on completing her master’s degree from Cleary.
Born and raised in Detroit, Seanti finished high school and moved on to college, but “stopped for a moment,” she describes. “College just wasn’t right for me, and it just wasn’t making sense for me at the moment.”
She accepted a position as a telecommunications operator for the Detroit Police Department, and soon learned about Cleary’s pathways to completion accelerated degree program.
“Cleary positioned it as a work life balance program with an expectation that working parents could do both and succeed, so I decided to give it a try,” she says. Seanti received scholarship support from Cleary, a grant from the state and some assistance from the police department. “My tuition costs were pretty much covered,” which made the decision an even easier one.
She started working toward her bachelor’s degree in 2023, but she found raising a 2-year-old, working full-time with the police department and going to school full-time was too much to juggle, so she withdrew from school. “There was just too much going on and I couldn’t do it all,” she admits.
Fortunately, her father stepped in. He decided to join his daughter in academia, enrolled at Cleary, and encouraged her to return. “If my dad, who owns his own business, was going to do it, I should be able to, and I wanted to prove to him that I could,” she thought. “My dad, along with my professors at Cleary, were by my side motivating me and supporting me.”
Father and daughter took classes together, studied together and supported each other. “He helped me all the way through. It was his motivation that drove me to keep going,” Seanti notes.
Her father – Sean Parks – earned his bachelor’s degree in one year (he already had his associate’s degree and all of his credits transferred to Cleary). He was at the top of his class, and he received Cleary’s Business Innovation Award at commencement ceremonies.
Seanti graduated one year later with a double major – project management and organizational leadership – and chose to keep the momentum going by enrolling in Cleary’s master’s degree program in leadership. “I plan to be a project manager, and I will need these skills,” she points out. She will graduate with her master’s in spring 2026.
In June, she accepted a position with Avis Budget Group as an operations manager. “I need to develop my leadership skills so I can reach my career goal. This opportunity was one I couldn’t pass up,” she finds.
“Cleary has changed my life. I now am in a leadership role, thanks to what I learned in the classroom. My organizational leadership classes provided me with many behavioral insights into the real world, which have helped me as a manager and contributed to my knowledge of adopting new approaches to job challenges,” Seanti reports.
“I want to give a special thank you to Mr. Bacon (Ryan Bacon, Student Success and Outreach manager for Cleary’s Detroit campus and the DPD). He put so much help and effort into making sure I stayed on track with my program. He has been an impactful influence in my life,” she asserts.
“I am grateful for Cleary; the school made my education affordable and achievable, the professors were helpful – sometimes I would get a little lost in a class, and professors got me back on track – and no matter what time of day it was, instructors were available. They gave me the motivation to continue. I’ve been successful because of Cleary’s support, understanding, flexibility and words of encouragement.”
