Chantelle McNeil went back to school to earn her bachelor’s in liberal studies and a certificate from the Pierre Laclede Honors College. She currently works as an auditor in the Internal Audit Section of the City of St. Louis Comptroller’s Office. (Photo by Derik Holtmann)
Chantelle McNeil is well aware of the transformational impact that the University of Missouri–St. Louis has had on her family.
McNeil was working at FedEx Ground when she decided to go back to school to make herself more marketable after getting passed over for promotions a few times. Her mother, who at the time was about to graduate from UMSL with a degree in social science, encouraged her to look into the university.
“The way that she spoke about it, she said that UMSL has plenty of resources, and that the support system with different staff and faculty was just immaculate,” McNeil said. “She said they could help put me in a position to grow in my career path.”
As a single mother of four children, McNeil found her initial college experience to be incredibly challenging when she pursued her associate degree several years before coming to UMSL. Her experience at UMSL, she said, couldn’t have been more different.
McNeil, who graduated last weekend with her bachelor’s degree in liberal studies and a certificate from the Pierre Laclede Honors College, appreciated the flexibility offered at UMSL, including online courses that accommodated her work schedule and family life. Outside of the classroom, she enjoyed taking advantage of events specifically designed for student parents, such as Tiny Tritons, which she participated in with her young granddaughter.
“This UMSL experience has been absolutely everything for me,” McNeil said. “With me being a single parent, the resources at UMSL are just astronomical. I feel like UMSL not only supports traditional students but also nontraditional students. And that’s what I was really looking for when I went back to school. Because, again, I’m a single parent of four, and I want to go back to school, but I want to know how this is going to work with work-life balance. With those opportunities, resources and different events, it just encouraged me and enabled me to be involved in UMSL more than just being a student.”
At the time she enrolled at UMSL, McNeil’s children were 18, 17, 15 and 13. By going back to school later in life to further her career, she hoped to inspire them and lead by example.
“I thought it was very important, because this is a crucial point in their school endeavors, to see their mother as a single parent going back to school,” McNeil said. “You never stop learning. I really thought that that was important, and I thought that was really awesome that I was able to take advantage of the opportunities and events that UMSL has to offer. I’m just so excited about the inspiration that it gives our children, our family and their friends, and it goes a long way. The torch keeps passing.”
Initially, McNeil planned to study business internationalization, but she found herself struggling with statistics courses. Her advisor in the Honors College, Audri Adams, was her “go-to guru” when she faced issues with her coursework and ultimately helped her revise her degree program so that she was able to graduate. Similarly, McNeil found her professors to be “nothing but amazing,” noting that they were always responsive to questions and detailed in their direction. As someone who loves to write, she was also excited to flex her writing skills for publications in the Honors College, including interviewing alumni and writing about their experiences at UMSL.
At the time, McNeil was also balancing family and a full-time job. For almost two years, she’s been working as an auditor in the Internal Audit Section of the City of St. Louis Comptroller’s Office. Her role involves conducting audits, including expenditure reviews, fiscal monitoring reviews and compliance reviews, and writing reports that summarize those results. McNeil particularly enjoys the fieldwork component of the job, which allows her to visit each work site in person and interview people about processes such as procurement and invoicing. Once her fieldwork is complete, she creates a report that gets posted to the City of St. Louis website for the public to view.
McNeil is the first to admit that she’s not the kind of person who can sit at a desk for eight hours a day, so she loves that her work allows her to get out of the office to meet and talk with people in the community. She also knows the work that she does has real meaning for residents, as it’s important to be transparent as the city implements new infrastructure, such as updates to St. Louis Lambert International Airport.
“It’s been an amazing experience for me with the Internal Audit Section, just meeting new people and learning and gaining knowledge from them,” she said. “It’s a lot of ground to cover in auditing. I was really excited to see my first projects roll out on the city website, to see my name there and just everything that I did. I still have a lot to learn, and I’m really looking forward and super excited about my future with the City of St. Louis, under the Internal Audit Section.”
Eventually, McNeil hopes to work her way up to audit supervisor, and she’s confident that UMSL has given her the tools she needs to grow her in her career. In addition to the business courses she’s taken, she has found the writing skills she learned at UMSL – including a business writing course, as well as a storytelling course that she found surprisingly helpful – to be beneficial for her career. As an auditor, much of her work involves producing reports, and she knows that it’s essential that they be transparent and easy for residents to understand.
Looking back at her time at UMSL, McNeil is grateful for the opportunities that the university provided – not just for her, but for her family as well. She hopes other nontraditional students will be encouraged to take the leap, too.
“As a nontraditional student, I just encourage anybody and everybody to go back and give yourself that opportunity to have that experience,” McNeil said. “UMSL is one of the greatest college institutions here in St. Louis. They have a lot to offer, and they have helped guide me into my career path now. Even after graduation, I will continue to stay connected with UMSL because they’re an important part of our community in developing and building careers for our citizens.”
