There are really no impediments to obtaining a college degree these days.

Joan Alexander of Maine, USA belatedly received her Bachelor of Science in Education (BSE) diploma from the University of Maine (UM) on 11 May.

Alexander did not graduate with the rest of her class for failing to fulfill her last academic requirement — to teach a class of students — because she was pregnant at the time.

She, however, went on to focus on her family and later worked as an aide for a home-based preschool program in Southwest Harbor, helping young children develop vital skills in literacy, communication, motor control, and imaginative play, News Center Maine (NCM) reports.

When the mother of three was finally about to receive her diploma, she was unable to attend the graduation ceremony but she was represented by her youngest daughter, Tracy, and a granddaughter, according to NCM.

It was Tracy who had reached out to UM to ask its College of Education and Human Development to credit her mother’s teaching of preschoolers to meet her last requirement. It was granted.

The 88-year-old Alexander, who should have graduated in 1959, said the BSE degree meant so much to her for “filling a hole in my heart.”

“My parents did not complete college, so this was important to me,” she said, according to NCM. “It gives me a sense of closure and accomplishment.”

Meanwhile, a Lapu-Lapu City, Cebu senior citizen took advantage of a free medical procedure offered by the mayor as part of a health program.

The 67-year-old resident of Barangay Calawisan was also drawn by the P20,000 incentive for seniors who would participate in Mayor Junard Chan’s annual manhood project conducted on 20, 22 and 30 May.

Chan personally witnessed the circumcision of the senior citizen, who failed to undergo the procedure during his youth, at the Hoop Dome in Barangay Gun-ob on 22 May, media reports said, citing the City Health Office.