PharmD graduate earns dual degrees
by Mary
Helen YarboroughPublic Relations
Her eyes are reflective of a rich soul who has endured pain and loss but who achieved academically and personally despite dire distractions.
Dr. Jacquetta
Williams and son Cameron look forward to a new life with Terrence
Manigo.Jacquetta Williams was born the youngest of eight children in Walterboro 30 years ago. When she was 4, her mother died of a heart attack at the age of 41. The loss of her mother to heart disease inspired Williams to pursue a career in health. Today, she becomes a PharmD, and simultaneously has earned a Master of Business Administration degree from The Citadel. Williams achieved these degrees while raising a little boy.
Williams maintained her focus on her academic development in light of continued heartache and personal challenges.
After graduating from the University of Florida with a degree in nutrition, she returned to the Lowcountry to manage a staffing agency.
“My sister kept telling me, go to pharmacy school. ‘You always wanted to be a pharmacist,’ she told me,” Williams recalled. “And so I said, ‘OK, I’ll go.”
Not long after that conversation, her sister died by a single gunshot to the head, a fatal wound administered by her despondent husband, who had lost his job two weeks prior.
“They had no history of domestic violence. We had no warning at all. But after that, I was determined to do what my sister had urged me to do, get my PharmD,” she said.
Williams had been managing a staffing agency in Charleston when she applied to MUSC. “I waited until the last minute, I mean even the last hour to get in my application,” Williams said. Soon after, though, she got an interview with the college’s Steve Brown, RPh., Thomas Dix, Ph.D., and Marc LaPointe, PharmD.
“They said, ‘We love you, but we’re missing something,’” Williams recalled with a laugh. “‘Where’s your PCAT (pharmacy college admissions test)? How did you get an interview?’ So I had about two weeks to prepare for my PCAT, which I took and passed, luckily.”
She entered MUSC’s PharmD program in 2003. Then her father suffered a stroke. While worrying about her father, Williams was caring for her 3-year-old son, Cameron, alone—but not for long.
When she found out about the MBA program at The Citadel, she had already assembled a group of extraordinary friends and fellow academic achievers at MUSC. Together, they decided to pursue their MBA degrees, and share in caring for Williams’ son.
“They all purposely scheduled their classes on opposite days as mine so they could help watch my son,” Williams said. “I would not have been able to do it without them. My friends are just great. …And now, my son is so excited. He says, ‘Mama, you’re still in school? When are you graduating?’ He is so excited that I am finishing school.”
Williams' feat at earning an MBA from The Citadel included becoming the first in her class to satisfy the degree requirements of a two-year curriculum in just one year.
In addition to her scholastic achievements, she also has been involved with many associations and programs, including the Presidential Scholars Program, the Student National Pharmacy Association and the American Pharmacy Association. While attending MUSC, she also worked all four years at the Kmart pharmacy serving as a lead intern for the Charleston area.
Holding herself to the highest level of moral, ethical, legal and professional standards, Williams has been an advocate in the field of pharmacy, including serving as a guest speaker for many local schools through MUSC’s Office of Diversity to promote the profession to underprivileged youth.
While she has endured many distractions, including two years ago when her sister was diagnosed with breast cancer, she also is rejoicing in the accomplishments of others. While she became a PharmD, another of Williams’ sisters, Sabrina Williams, is earning her law degree from the Charleston School of Law.
With her degrees completed, Williams is embarking on a promising path that is paved by a contract with a brand new Target in Savannah, Ga., and starting a family.
“I’m marrying my first boyfriend,” Williams said. “I used to visit him when I’d come to Walterboro to visit my grandmother. I was 15 and he was 18. But he broke up with me, because he said I lived too far away.”
Regardless of the distance, the two kept in touch, talking a couple times a year. So when she was returning to the area, they rekindled their relationship, and in 2005, started dating again. This month, Williams was given away by the man who raised her, her older brother, to the only man she ever loved, Terrence Manigo.” I had to cut my honeymoon short, because my brother graduated with his Doctor of Ministry degree on May 5 from Gammon ITC, in Atlanta [Ga.].” she said.
Jacquetta couldn't have made it without:
1. Prayer
2. Family Support
3. Friends
4. Recreational outlets (have a hobby)
5. Support of faculty and administrators
Friday, May 18, 2007
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