Grad-parent: Mother and son graduate from UC Irvine on same day

Faith Couts always dreamed of pursuing a college degree, but “the timing was never right.”

Couts, 50, had her first child during her senior year in high school and enrolled in community college in Las Vegas.

But being a single parent was “overwhelming” and college faded out of the picture as Couts worked to support her growing family, which includes her son, Hunter Wetzel, 22.

But on Friday, Couts finally realized her dream and received her bachelor’s degree in social policy and public service from the UC Irvine’s School of Social Sciences. She also received a host of awards and honors, including the Chancellor’s Award, the Schonfeld Scholar Award and the UCI Alumni Assn.’s Distinguished Anteater Award.

The timing could not have been better.

Wetzel received his bachelor’s degree in anthropology on the same day from the university.

Couts said the experience of graduating alongside her son was surreal.

“I’m just trying to be a little bit in the moment right now,” she said.

For some, the idea of attending college with a parent might be terrifying — an encroachment on the freedom college often represents.

But for Wetzel, the experience was rewarding.

“I just always thought she was very like right-brained — really emotional, really empathetic, good at problem-solving, that sort of thing. But not super book smart,” he said. “And this whole thing has taught me that she actually gets both.”

But Couts’ penchant for academics did not surprise Wetzel.

“I would say I’m impressed, but it’s 100% expected,” Wetzel said. “I knew she’d be able to do it. I expected nothing less of her.”

She never cramped my style, he said, although he acknowledged that had his mom started UC Irvine when he was a freshman he might have felt different. Couts began attending the university when Hunter was a junior.

Couts agreed.

“As a freshman, it would have been a hard no,” Couts said, laughing. “Absolutely not. Mom cannot come to college.”

But it was Wetzel’s entrance into college that spurred Couts to reenter academia and chase the goal of a college degree.

Shortly before Wetzel started at UC Irvine, Couts began taking classes at Saddleback College after a nearly two-decade break.

When it came time to apply to transfer schools, Couts selected Cal State Fullerton, UC San Diego, where she was offered a full-ride scholarship, and UC Irvine.

She selected UC Irvine to avoid a long commute from her home in Rancho Santa Margarita but first got permission from her son.

“The main thing was, I was like, ‘Mom, I’m going to need space,’” Wetzel said. “‘I’m going to be with my friends for the most part.’”

But the mother and son found each other as valuable study buddies, looking over each other’s assignments and giving feedback.

“Every time I came home for a family dinner, these two were reading each other’s papers and I couldn’t talk to them for 30 minutes until they were done,” Wetzel’s sibling Karlee remembered.

“She worked so incredibly hard it’s crazy,” Hunter Wetzel said of his mother.

For Couts, the experience of working alongside her son has opened her eyes to different ways of working and to “maybe just enjoying it a little bit more and not being so serious about everything.”

As for the future, Hunter Wetzel plans on following one of his siblings into the video game industry with his development company Runstar, which he started with childhood friends.

And Couts is not stopping at a bachelor’s degree — she will be pursuing her doctorate in higher education and student development and plans to focus on helping nontraditional students like herself.