Stacy Verbeck

For fifteen years, Stacy Verbeck’s world was defined by the classroom. As an educator teaching everything from English to music, she was a master of communication and patience. But beneath the surface, the spark was fading. The high burnout in modern teaching, intensified by the pandemic, left Stacy feeling like she was hitting a professional dead end.

“I loved teaching, but I couldn’t see myself doing it for decades,” Stacy reflects. “It’s a wonderful career in many ways, but it’s one where you can start to feel like every day is a repeat of a struggle you can’t win.”

At 35, the idea of “starting over” was daunting. Stacy took the initiative to earn a second bachelor’s degree in IT, but she soon discovered a harsh truth of the tech industry: a degree alone isn’t always a guarantee. Every entry-level role she applied for required hands-on experience she didn’t have.

Stacy’s search for a bridge between her academic knowledge and a real-world paycheck led her to Per Scholas Greater Boston. However, the decision to enroll wasn’t without its anxieties.

“I had a lot of self-imposed challenges,” she admits. “I worried about ageism and that my resume was just 15 years of teaching. To an IT recruiter, I felt like my past didn’t exist.”

That’s where the Per Scholas impact first took hold. It wasn’t just about the hardware; it was about the narrative. Through the program’s Career Readiness curriculum, Stacy met with career therapists like Bernadette and Deborah. They helped her realize that managing a classroom meant developing skills such as high-level leadership, conflict resolution, and complex organization. These skills were highly transferable to the IT industry.

Additionally, the biggest hurdle for any career changer is often financial: How do you stop working for 11 weeks to learn a new trade? For Stacy, the answer was the Per Scholas Zero Percent Loan.

“I’m lucky because my wife was working, but we still had less income because I wasn’t working,” Stacy explains. “The loan took a lot of stress off of me. It meant I could focus on studying and not worry about financial challenges.”

For Stacy, the loan was a no-brainer compared to the predatory interest of traditional student debt. “It’s way better than taking out that kind of loan. It’s something I wish I’d had access to in my other educational endeavors.”

Then came the academic challenge. The CompTIA A+ course at Per Scholas is famously rigorous, often described as a true boot camp. For Stacy, this was new.

“I have three degrees; I love school. But this was different,” she explains. “This was geared toward a high-stakes, three-hour exam. It was stressful, memorizing facts and retaking practice tests endlessly. But that’s where the cohort comes in.”

Instead of the isolation she felt while teaching, Stacy found herself surrounded by a support network of peers who were all in the same boat. They studied together, cheered each other on, and transformed the stress into a shared mission.

The most dramatic shift in Stacy’s journey happened in the final 48 hours of the program. On a Thursday, just one day before graduation, Stacy participated in a Per Scholas mock interview. Immediately following that practice, she walked into a real interview with Auxzillium, a Managed Service Provider (MSP).

By Friday morning, she stood with her cohort to graduate, not only with her CompTIA A+ and Google IT Support certifications, but also with a signed job offer in hand.

Today, Stacy is a Desktop Administrator at Auxzillium. She is the sole on-site IT presence for a local nonprofit, managing everything from level 1 and 2 support to engineering and networking. The soft skills her mentors at Per Scholas helped her highlight are now her greatest assets.

“I have my Auxillium coworkers to call on, but I’ve found a level of independence I never had before.”

Financially, the move provided stability, but the personal impact was even greater. Stacy has traded passion-based burnout for what she calls “sustainable interest.”

“My passion for music led to burnout because once it became a career, I didn’t like it anymore. But tech is something I’m interested in. There’s always something new to learn, and the pressure is different. If a computer breaks, it’s okay—you can fix it or replace it. That realization has made me so much happier.”

Stacy’s journey with Per Scholas didn’t end when she received her certificate. As an alumna, she still utilizes the 1:1 coaching. Recently, she reached out to her coaches to prepare for her first-year self-evaluation and salary negotiation—proving that Per Scholas isn’t just an 11-week course, but a lifelong professional foundation. 

She is already looking toward the future, upskilling with Microsoft certifications and eyeing a path into engineering or cybersecurity.

“If you can dedicate those weeks to the program, it is worth every second,” Stacy says. “It doesn’t just open doors; it gives you the confidence to walk through them.”