Are you thinking about going to graduate school, or already on the journey and searching for motivation? The latest episode of Victors in Grad School offers both inspiration and practical advice. Host Dr. Christopher Lewis sits down with John Ambrose, Vice Chancellor for Enrollment Management at the University of Michigan Flint. Through vulnerability and candor, John Ambrose unpacks his non-linear path to academic and professional achievement, and why graduate school was transformative for him.
A recurring theme throughout the episode is resilience. As a first-generation student, John Ambrose openly discusses the difficulty of navigating higher education "without the right mentoring and information," sharing a raw moment of feeling "trapped" after changing majors and needing additional years to finish his undergraduate degree (). Despite setbacks and personal loss, including the passing of his father during his freshman year, John Ambrose pressed on, motivated to create meaning and success for himself.
The transition into graduate school wasn't easy. John Ambrose recounts taking a pay cut to accept a job that would fund his master's, balancing the demands of work, school, and family – at times, facing weekends packed with study and few breaks (, ). For anyone hesitating to return to school later in life, his advice is honest: "It's not that you can't do it, but what are the adjustments that I need to make?... What is this going to mean for your family?" (). Preparation and honest communication with one's support network are crucial.
Another highlight is John Ambrose's perspective change from undergraduate to graduate studies. He describes the graduate experience as "fun," especially the value of discussion-based learning and the satisfaction of intellectual exchange (). He notes that beyond credentials, graduate school is about personal development and acquiring soft skills—listening, confidence, grit, and the ability to articulate your experiences. "[Graduate school] is an opportunity to develop yourself and to provide opportunities for you to become a different type of version of yourself," he reflects ().
This episode isn't just for prospective students—it's for anyone seeking to find meaning in growth, overcome setbacks, and make purposeful choices about the next stage in life. Tune in to hear an inspiring journey that proves success isn't always linear—and graduate school can be about so much more than a degree.
Listen to the full episode and let John Ambrose's journey empower your own.
TRANSCRIPT
John Ambrose [00:00:01]:
Welcome to Victors in Grad School, where we have conversations with students, alumni, and experts about what it takes to find success in graduate school.
Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:11]:
Welcome back to Victors in Grad School. I'm your host, Dr. Christopher Lewis, Director of Graduate Programs at the University of Michigan Flint. Really excited to have you back again this week. And as always, every week, we're on a journey together. I say it every week, but it is so true that the— that what you're doing right now as you are preparing to think about— either think about graduate school, apply to graduate school, go through graduate school— it is a journey. And that journey might take you a year to get into graduate school, it might take you 2 years, 3 years, who knows. No matter where you are on this path, there are things that you can do right now to help you to be successful ultimately in the journey that you're on.
Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:50]:
And that's why this show exists. This show exists to help you to find some tools for your toolbox to help you to be able to to find success sooner. We do that many times through opportunities for you to meet others that have gone before you, that have gone to graduate school, have been successful in graduate school, and they can share that experience with you. And today we've got another great guest with us. I'm really excited to be able to have John Ambrose with us. And John is the new Vice Chancellor for Enrollment Management at the University of Michigan Flint. And I'm really excited to have him here to be able to share with you his journey in going through graduate school and how that's led him to here at University of Michigan Flint. John, thanks so much for being here today.
John Ambrose [00:01:33]:
Dr. Lewis, thank you for having me.
Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:01:35]:
It is my pleasure. Really excited to have you here today. And I am going to start this interview with an opportunity to go back in time. I know you did your undergraduate work at Western Michigan University and then— yes, go Broncos! We both have that connection that we're both Broncos and I guess I wanna go back in time to that point when you were at Western, and then after Western, you went off, you worked for a while, and at some point, some point in that work experience, you made a choice, you made a decision that you were going to continue your education and continue your education in a completely different area than what you did as an undergraduate student. So bring me back to that point when you were having that inkling in your mind, and what made you decide that that was the right time —to go to graduate school?
John Ambrose [00:02:23]:
Oh, man. Uh, days in Kalamazoo were an amazing time for me. That was an opportunity where I like to say I, I was reared in Detroit, but I was trained in Kalamazoo. In terms of adulting, as the young people use, uh, that term today, it took me 6 and a half years to get my 4-year degree from Western Michigan, mostly because I changed my major, but I only changed it once. And I was required to almost go back from square one. Uh, very few of the credits that I had earned prior to were allowed in my new major. And so it, it was a difficult decision, but as a first-generation student, then you're doing your best to negotiate and navigate, and all the information you're getting is not necessarily accurate. So I just found myself having to make an adult decision in the moment.
John Ambrose [00:03:14]:
So I remember very vividly going out and sitting on the curb and crying. And I got myself together after I cried about it. And it was, you know, it was almost like I felt like a sit— like I had just been sentenced to 4 more years of jail. And not that I hated it, but it just— I felt trapped, to be honest, if I'm being honest about the emotions that I felt. But I was like, okay, you're— this is it. I mean, this is what I have to do. And I had gotten myself into that position primarily because a little bit of it was academics, A lot of it was just the lack of mentoring that I had and the lack of sharing and feeling like I was the only one. But those are the types of things that first-generation students will face at moments in their educational journey.
John Ambrose [00:03:58]:
But stood up, dropped my face off, went to the bathroom, washed it, and came back and signed up and said, okay, let's do it. So I did my 4 years, and at that point I thought, I'm never coming back to college again. But I was so focused on my career that when I got ready to graduate, I don't already done in, in excess of 12 different internships all over the place, trying to really find myself. Everything from internships within my major to legal and social work and outside, you name just, you know, I did just about any job there was to do on the campus and worked in all the buildings, I think, except two by the time I graduated. But it was an opportunity, like I said, to really mature and grow. And eventually I did gain mentors across the campus. And so But it was just a different type of experience and one that I cherished really very dearly and hold close to my heart because I lost my dad my first semester freshman year. And he was a bit of my muse for going to college.
John Ambrose [00:05:01]:
So when he passed away, I really wasn't sure because I'd never done anything for myself. Uh, everything I did was to please him and to make him happy. And, you know, you, you wanted to get that stamp of approval from your dad or— and your mom. But my dad was larger than life in my eyes at that time. And also it was, it was a bit of learning, learning to want things for myself. So fast forward, I graduate, I work in the printing industry for a few years, actually more than a few, but I changed companies probably about 3 times and each one, uh, more progressively until the last one that was a bit more entrepreneurial. Found myself leaving there after the smaller mom-and-pop shop with the entrepreneurship piece and I started selling life insurance. And I got a call one day to find out if I was interested in joining Marygrove College.
John Ambrose [00:05:49]:
And so the decision was, after they made me an offer, that I would go and earn my master's degree in education. And so when I got to the point of— I think it was, you got to do 6 months. So after my 6-month probation period in the, the start of the career, I started the program. And so I had my master's degree in education. And the Sister Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary there who ran Marygrove College— and I knew very little about the college when I, I started to work there. But that was the primary reason for going. So I got this wonderful lesson about the history of Detroit, but it was also my first foray into Catholic school education and kind of the mission of the Catholic Church as well as that particular sect for these— by the Sister Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. And I mean, they were a gritty group of sisters and they did not take any, any stuff from any man or any woman for that matter.
John Ambrose [00:06:47]:
And I mean, just the history of being the— in Detroit and how they became— went from being all-female to co-ed in the '60s. So it was quite the journey. And later to find out that my older sister had actually gotten her degree from there. And then, so there was a lot of connective tissue, but just things I had never really paid attention to. But it was a— and still is today— a beautiful campus. They just don't do college degrees anymore, undergraduate or master's. They are now a K-12 school, actually supported by the University of Michigan Ann Arbor and used— being used as a teaching lab for K-12 education and a part of the Detroit Public School System, community school district system. So they are continuing to educate and provide opportunities and access for Detroiters to education.
John Ambrose [00:07:35]:
But that's kind of a, a short brief about how I got from my bachelor's degree to my master's degree.
Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:07:41]:
So talk to me a little bit about going as a first-generation college student, as an undergraduate student. When you go to— when you go to graduate school, you're still a first-generation college student. It's a little bit different. There's different expectations, there's different thoughts and ways in which you have to, have to pivot to be successful in that journey itself, different than what it was in undergrad. And you had gone from undergrad to work and then now transitioning back into school. So talk to me about that transition for yourself. And as you transitioned into graduate school and through graduate school, you were successful, but what did you have to do to set yourself up for success as you transitioned into graduate school? And what did you have to do to maintain that success throughout the entire graduate school experience?
John Ambrose [00:08:27]:
As I mentioned, I, I did 6.5, so part of the reason, or even the change in the major, had a lot to do with my GPA in undergrad. So I'd gotten myself into trouble, got myself out of trouble while I was there, but my GPA didn't rise to the level of being regularly admitted to graduate school. So when I got there and I ended up on probation my first year, but was quickly taken off of probation after my first semester. So I ended up graduating with a, I think a 3.98 or 5 or something like that with my graduate degree from Marygrove. The process was interesting, Chris, because I, I mean, let's just keeping it honest. I was making less working for Marygrove than I did when I left college. As a newly minted graduate, college graduate, I made more out of college than I was making when I went there, but they were paying for my degree. So it became one of those investment moments, and I was married, and now I have a mortgage, and I've got car notes, and I've got all these bills, and there's not enough money coming in the door for doing the work.
John Ambrose [00:09:41]:
So it was a tough decision, but my wife said, "Hey, we'll make the sacrifice for 2 years for you to do this if this is what you want to do." So we had one of the two kids at that at that time, and then the second child came during the process of working on my master's degree. But a little bit like I hear some of my friends say about having grandchildren, they said, "If we knew grandchildren would be this much fun, I would have had them first and then done the kids second." And so I would tell you, for me, with a master's degree, if, if I had known that a master's degree was going to be that much fun, I would have done it first rather than doing the bachelor's degree. I'd never really taken discussion-based coursework, and so being in a setting where I allowed to converse and talk about my opinions and my thoughts about how I felt about certain educational aspects and thinking about the history of my K-12 or K-16 journey, it really opened my eyes to the ability and how learning could be different. And so I took my classes on the weekend. They weren't during the week, so they didn't interfere with my 9 to 5. I was given some time off to do my, my studies and homework during the work week. So I was given, I think, 5 hours a week so that I had opportunity to, to work on my studies. But I had as much on my plate during graduate school and maybe more in terms of the pressure.
John Ambrose [00:11:06]:
But the ability to focus and have support was interesting from my— when I think about the juxtaposition between my undergraduate years and my graduate years of what was on my plate. I had a lot of part-time jobs in undergraduate, and my mom would often tell me my priorities were a little askew and it— It would just grab me by my nerves because I didn't fully understand or contemplate what she was really saying. So it wasn't until later when I was working on my master's that I began to understand what she was saying. It wasn't that I had too much on my plate. It was what I was prioritizing about what was on my plate that made all the difference in the world. And so going back to get my master's degree, I didn't have a goal for— at the time for what it was going to mean. What I had come to understand, and I had learned this in undergraduate, it really doesn't matter to the degree that you hold. What matters is that you find a place in working— in working America where people— where you fit, whatever the work is.
John Ambrose [00:12:10]:
Um, but having a degree says a lot about who you are, and mostly that's why it exists as a caveat for, "This is the reason that we will hire you." Now, of course, there are disciplines, uh, being a doctor or, you know, a nurse or other things where you've got to have the background and understanding about those things, but there are a lot of things in in jobs and careers that exist, that it helps if you have a degree, but it doesn't matter that you have the very specific degree. And I think it's one of the myths that exists in a lot of people's mindsets about what education is and what it can do for you. But for me, it has opened a, a large variety of doors and opportunities. So when I got ready, I didn't know at the time when I took the job that I was going to— once I got my master's degree, that I was going to transition into higher ed. My intention was to go back to selling life insurance and move up in, in that particular industry. But I knew having an advanced degree of any type was going to be able to help me. And the reason I did the master's in ed with a focus on adult learning was I knew I wanted to manage adults. And so I've always felt that if you can teach, you can lead.
John Ambrose [00:13:22]:
So understanding education and how it fit into the ethos of the work world. But that's the biggest thing, Ian, sis, no matter what your degree is in, can you articulate how those specific, uh, tenets actually connect to the career that you're focused on or the new thing that you want to do? Can you make the correlation so that when you're interviewing, you have the ability to help the search committee understand how you view that connection? And I've been very successful in being able to do that over the years of taking the full complement of all of the things that I've done and bring those to bear in the places that I've gone.
Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:14:02]:
Now, as you said, you got a degree with the focus on adult learning, and you said you wanted to work with adults. And over the years, you stayed in higher education and working— you do work with adults, but you also work with many younger individuals as they were transitioning in and through their undergraduate experience. So as you look back and you think about the degree that you received and, and how that has helped you through your experience. If you think back now, would you change— would you choose the same program or path, and why or why not?
John Ambrose [00:14:36]:
I think I choose the same path in the program. I see the young people as high school seniors or juniors as young adults, and I won't get into the debates about where they are and, and, you know, the development of their frontal cortex and all of that stuff, but their experience and exposure to more adult items has far surpassed the kinds of things that I was exposed to at their age. And so in a lot of ways socially, they're ready to have conversations that they're not really fully developed to have. And so they still struggle a bit, I think, in terms of understanding, but they appreciate being able to wrestle with it themselves if you give them the opportunity to do it. But I wouldn't change any of it. I, I love the path, uh, and how I found higher education. I think it gives me a unique story. And I find the— I mean, I knew I loved higher ed when I got to college, and there were plenty of days that I wanted to quit during my undergraduate, but there was far too much— many other positive things going on.
John Ambrose [00:15:39]:
And once I got connected to the right mentors, they started to help me see life and navigate life differently. It wasn't that we were talking about my discipline or they were trying to help me understand my career. Options better, but they were helping me navigate life in a way that I, you know, had my father been around, I would've been looking for him, I think, to help me with the navigation for that. So I just came to experience and see higher ed very differently because of that. And it helped me to understand that we're not doing a great job of helping Americans understand what education really is. It's not a transactional effort that leads to these things. It is an opportunity for you to understand that there are greater layers and depths to us as individuals. When you think about— you get up every day in the morning and most of us have a mirror in the bathroom, but very few of us have a mirror that shows us the complete picture of who you are, 360 degrees.
John Ambrose [00:16:48]:
So even if you have a dressing mirror, you know, maybe you're just checking to make sure if you're that meticulous about your outfit. But again, most people don't. So you kind of get dressed, you check the front, and you go about your merry way. Education gives you an opportunity to think about the full 360-degree and gives you the confidence that you don't have to check the back if the front looks good. But oftentimes we get so consumed in other parts of what we think it is. So we think by having all of those additional mirrors, it's— it's display of vanity or of pride. And not everybody needs to know what I look like from behind and all of those types of things. But it's not about that.
John Ambrose [00:17:30]:
It really is about you and how you connect with other people and how you want to be seen by other people. And what do you really want to do? Most of us want to help other people, but we have no idea how to— especially once we become adults, we have no idea how to get out of our own way. And then we start thinking about, well, it's going to take me another 8 years. Well, if the good Lord lets you live another 8 years, what are you going to do with the 8 years? Are you going to continue to suffer through where you are, or are you going to decide and make a decision today? I'm going to invest this next 8 years or this next 3 years so that the last 5 years or the next 5 years beyond that can be more in line with what I really want to do, so that you don't have any regrets. But that's what it's about. So even when I talk with young people today about getting their undergraduate degree, it's not about what do you want to do for the rest of your life, it's what do you think you to do for the first 3 years after college, because they're going to change and they're going to have way more jobs than we ever did.
Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:18:30]:
Now, I guess as you think about the experience that you went through as a graduate student, everybody learns something. You're— you've got your soft skill or your hard skills and your soft skills that you're learning as you go through that experience. What would you say are the specific skills that you felt that you developed most in graduate school?
John Ambrose [00:18:49]:
Listening. Was probably the biggest one. I also developed my writing skills and became a better writer. But the listening was not just listening to others. It was listening to myself talk. And I talked about confidence a moment ago. I developed a new type of confidence, but I also developed a new ear. And I realized that I liked learning because sometimes you get to, to a certain point in your adult life and everything you've learned up to that point, you figure you've got it figured out.
John Ambrose [00:19:18]:
And then you have all these little small moments where things get added to that learning. But you don't acknowledge those. And that's the listening part that helped me out along the way because, you know, I, I stubbed my toe, I'd done okay, I was still continuing to do okay. And I felt like this was really, you know, it, but, but I had not made the decision, as I said, consciously that I was going to stay in higher ed. And so as I began to listen to the things that were happening around me, I knew, but I knew that I was going to stay in higher ed. It before I actually started my graduate level courses. So I knew that having a master's degree was going to do more for me in higher education than it was going to do for me in corporate America. So it's not that it wasn't going to help me, but I knew having this Master of Education, having made the decision to stay in higher education before I started my coursework and being admitted, was going to matter.
John Ambrose [00:20:12]:
So I learned those things about myself. I learned that I have more grit than I thought I did. I was prepared to make some sacrifices, but I had no idea the full level of sacrifices I was going to have to make as a dad, as a husband, as a, as an employee. I had to address a lot of things going through the process. I had to deal with the shame from my past, you know, not doing well academically in my undergraduate. I had to relive that, but I had to own it, and I had to— I wasn't prepared to own it. I, I mean, I did it in the, in the moment, and I knew what it was, but I just thought they were going to admit me or deny me. I didn't know probation was an option.
Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:20:49]:
I really appreciate you sharing that, and I Jazz, going back to when you first started your graduate program, what's one thing that you wish that someone would have told you about graduate school before you had started?
John Ambrose [00:21:02]:
I wish they would have talked to me more about the format of the classes and gotten me more excited about, like I said, discussion-based classes and the format. It might have helped me do a search or, or consider things differently. I think it would have also helped to even talk about, from an onboarding standpoint, It's great to give me all of the software applications that I'm going to need, and you're going to need a laptop, and you're going to need all these things, but it would have been helpful, I think, to really talk about the sacrifices that your family's going to have to make, that I'm going to have to make. Depending on the kind of reader you are— and when I say kind of reader, I mean at what speed do you read? You know, I didn't really learn to skim read until my senior year in college, but the kind of reader I needed to be for graduate-level work was completely different. So I think there are some nuance pieces there, especially for folks who are— who might have a degree, may have been out of undergraduate for quite a while, and are thinking now they want to get back into it. You know, what does it really take? It's not that you can't do it, but what are the adjustments that I need to make? What are some things that I can do to prepare, to get ready? So I, I think there's a different kind of preparation or preparatory stages that we can help adults prepare themselves to get mentally ready for what it looks like and to even talk about what is this going to mean for your family? What are the kind of things that you need to negotiate with them? Like, my wife telling me she was going to support me, man, that's wonderful, and it, it means a lot, but she didn't have any idea about the kinds of sacrifices she was gonna need to make. I'm pretty sure she thought, oh, you know, it was like— but every weekend for 2 years, I was absorbed either in work or in school, so there was no, hey, let's go to the movies, or can we take the baby to the zoo, or can we go to the park or do something like that. So I very, very, very few days off from being a student.
John Ambrose [00:22:59]:
And that 5 hours a week, while it was great to get from the employer, it wasn't enough. You need a lot more than that. So on the weekends when I wasn't in class, I spent a lot of time working study groups. So working with my peers and being there. But when you finish— and it's 2 years, it's not forever— and that's the commitment. So that part I was clear about. All of the work in between, the mental adjustments, then the micro adjustments, So the macro, you can kind of figure out. It's the micro adjustments.
John Ambrose [00:23:30]:
What, you know, what are the kind of skill sets and things again? What are the things I could work on to be a little better at? And what does it mean? Like, have you ever had discussion-based classes? Like, we only do that now, I think, for online classes. Like, hey, have you ever had an online class? And I did my first online classes in grad school, and I had, I think, one or two. And man, that was a huge change. You realize all your academic experiences have been in the classroom.— with other people and being able to adjust and get feedback and have those moments. But when you're doing coursework online for the first time, it can be very different. There are definitely some adjustments that need to be made.
Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:24:08]:
You definitely do. Uh, as we finish up today, in thinking about success, as you look back at your graduate education and you think about students that are thinking about maybe going back, whether it be in education, business, medicine, whatever it may be, what are some tips that you might offer other considering graduate education that would help them find success sooner?
John Ambrose [00:24:29]:
Don't look at the degree as an opportunity to increase your income. Look at it as an opportunity to develop yourself and to provide opportunities for you to become a different type of version of yourself. If you're just looking to add a degree 'cause it's gonna help improve your income, I suppose that's okay. But I don't think that that's going to be enough to satisfy you, especially when things may get harder. I've got a mentee who every time professionally he hits a ceiling, if you will, and he wants to break through the glass ceiling, he finds a way to go and get another degree. So he just got a law degree from Yale. But prior to that, he's got, I think, 3 other master's degrees prior to going to get his law degree from Yale. But he kept hitting a ceiling and was like, I need more education.
John Ambrose [00:25:22]:
So he, he— go sacrifice, go find the right hammer to break through the ceiling, get through. Not— there are a lot of other ways to do that. I've got a different mentee and she negotiates. She didn't necessarily— she went and got her graduate degree after successfully negotiating career changes 3 or 4 times. And when I asked her, I was like, so why did you finally go get it now? She was like, I just really wanted to know more about this particular subject because she'd had enough opportunities where she was still able to navigate successfully without the information and do it, but she decided because she wanted it for herself. And that's the biggest thing I think when you think about graduate-level work is I would encourage you to want it for yourself more than, again, just looking to enhance your paychecks.
Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:26:07]:
Well, John, I just want to say thank you. Thank you for sharing your story with us today. I really appreciate that, and I truly wish you all the best.
John Ambrose [00:26:16]:
Thanks, Chris.
Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:26:17]:
The University of Michigan-Flint has a full array of master's and doctorate programs if you are interested in —your education. Whether you're looking for in-person or online learning options, the University of Michigan-Flint has programs that will meet your needs. For more information on any of our graduate programs, visit umflint.edu/graduateprograms to find out more. Thanks again for spending time with me as you prepare to be a victor in grad school. I look forward to speaking with you again soon as we embark together together on your graduate school journey. If you have any questions or want to reach out, email me at flintgradoffice@umflint.edu.
