They returned to college in their 30s as moms and made the most of their Bruin adventure

Mothers make it happen.

So when Tahlia Disisto, 34, a sociology major and math minor who will graduate this June, had an important Zoom interview and a sick 2-year-old on her hands, she took care of both with aplomb.

Accustomed to balancing parenthood, schoolwork, academic research and running the small sunscreen company, she co-founded, Disisto is one of nearly 1,000 undergraduate, graduate and professional UCLA students who juggle their studies and more with caring for children, parents or siblings.

"Parenting and caregiving students defy the odds and tangibly display commitment, a growth mindset and dedication," said Ishia Orozco-Barajas, director of UCLA's Students with Dependents Program. "No journey is the same, but each and every experience contributes to making history, changing the narrative and paving the way for future generations."

Tahlia Disisto: Going 'under the hood' with crime data

Disisto says she came to UCLA with a clear goal: to become a researcher who could help solve real problems. The mother of two traces her path - from a small Italian immigrant community in Adelaide, Australia, to Westwood - to a chance encounter with a law enforcement recruitment video.

"The video featured Special Agent Eddie Winkley; I'll never forget his name," she said. "He gave this phenomenal speech about surveillance, security, crime, what the Department of Justice does, how they work and being honorable - that was something that stuck with me at age 16."

As she traveled the world over the years, living in multiple countries including Japan, England, France and Canada, Disisto never forgot that video, and made a point to study the different justice approaches of each government she encountered. It paid off when she moved to the United States and realized she was interested in contributing to the justice field herself.

Then a mother of one, she settled in California and enrolled in Santa Monica College with a newfound confidence, earning excellent marks and ultimately acceptance to UC Irvine, UC Santa Cruz, UC Santa Barbara and eventually UCLA, her top choice.

A few months later, Disisto learned she was pregnant with her second child and at risk for preeclampsia, a serious blood pressure disorder that can develop during pregnancy. But she faced the challenges head-on.

"I started at UCLA in the fall quarter, got myself in the system and immediately was very overwhelmed," Disisto said. "But if there's something a Mum can do, it's to know how to plan. I just made a spreadsheet, and I started putting everything in that spreadsheet that the school offered - every research scholarship, every program, every opportunity, and I added due dates."

These opportunities brought Disisto to a full-circle moment as a scholar in UCLA's Undergraduate Research Fellows program. Her research project, which was also supported by the Sociology Departmental Honors Program and a Keck Fellowship, investigates how certain administrative and training factors influence how law enforcement professionals classify incidents in real time.

That same can-do attitude led Disisto to teach herself InDesign so she could join Aleph, UCLA's undergraduate research journal. She eventually became the publication's managing editor - a role rarely held by recent transfer students.

As Disisto prepares for commencement festivities, the mother of a 10-year-old daughter and a 2-year-old son, has already secured an internship at the Department of Justice as a crime analyst, where she hopes to impact others the way that fateful video impacted her.

"I pinch myself a lot," she said with a laugh. "I'm a young woman from a small town in Australia who watched a YouTube video, and now I'm an American citizen graduating from UCLA and starting an internship with the federal government."

Dejanay Wallace: Radical representation and cultural heritage archiving

Dejanay Wallace, 33, describes herself as a dreamer from East Oakland.

Graduating in June, this anthropology major and African American studies minor - and mother to a 10-year-old daughter - is determined to advance research that is more representative of her identity and her lived experiences.

The daughter of an African American father and a Mexican American mother, Wallace started her higher education journey but left college to focus on full-time employment. When she became a mother, she decided she wanted to create better opportunities for her daughter and enrolled at Chabot College in Northern California before transferring to UCLA.

Balancing schoolwork, a part-time job and frequent trips to the Bay Area to visit her daughter, who currently lives with her mother and sister, has not been easy, but Wallace is committed to doing it for her family, herself and for those her work will ultimately benefit.

For her Undergraduate Research Fellows program, Wallace studies the community in which she was raised. Growing up in the birthplace of the Black Panther Party, she was surrounded by its powerful legacy of advocating for Black pride, systemic reform and community organizing. Now, she's examining the tension between the curatorial approaches of Black Panther Party history at the Oakland Museum of California, a well-known, state-funded cultural institution, and the West Oakland Mural Project, a smaller, grassroots community museum.

Ultimately, Wallace hopes her research will add to the overarching conversation about the importance of community-centered participation and representation in preserving cultural heritage.

"I wanted to explore something that carries a lot of weight collectively for Black Americans," she said.

After she graduates, Wallace hopes to apply to Ph.D. programs focused on decolonization and mixed-race studies at UCLA, Stanford, UT Austin or Yale. But for now, as she readies to don her commencement cap, she is proud to be able to inspire others, especially one person in particular.

"Motherhood plays a huge part in the push to achieve these things and to be so ambitious," she said. "I want my daughter to see that she is capable of anything. I want to show her that there's not just one linear path to life."