{"id":10518,"date":"2015-05-04T07:35:58","date_gmt":"2015-05-04T12:35:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/college.unc.edu\/?p=10518"},"modified":"2024-07-02T16:07:23","modified_gmt":"2024-07-02T16:07:23","slug":"meyer15","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/?p=10518","title":{"rendered":"Michael Meyer \u201915: Physician earns his UNC undergrad degree as a point of pride"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Dr,<\/a>
Dr. Michael Meyer will graduate with a bachelor\u2019s degree in chemistry May 10, nearly five decades after he set foot on campus as a freshman in 1967.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Hanging on a wall in Dr. Michael Meyer\u2019s office are his diploma from the Emory School of Medicine, a certificate showing the completion of his pediatric residency at Duke University and a framed print of the Old Well.<\/p>\n

That print was a stand-in for the diploma he never received from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This month, the Roanoke, Va., pediatrician will at long last realize his dream of swapping out the print for the diploma\u201448 years after he set foot on campus as a freshman in 1967.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just a longtime personal goal for me,\u201d said Meyer, who for the last 10 years has gradually been earning the 13 credits needed to complete his bachelor\u2019s degree in chemistry from the College of Arts and Sciences<\/a>. (That\u2019s assuming he passes his organic chemistry final, but he\u2019s pretty sure he will.)<\/p>\n

\u201cIt won\u2019t help me in any future job endeavor,\u201d said the semi-retired physician, chuckling.<\/p>\n

Meyer, 66, was a good student the first time around at Carolina\u2014a Phi Beta Kappa<\/a> who met the requirements to apply to medical school after only three years as an undergrad. He was accepted into UNC\u2019s School of Medicine but opted to go to Emory in part to experience big-city life in Atlanta.<\/p>\n

After his residency and a short stint in Chattanooga, Tenn., Meyer settled in Roanoke in 1979, maintaining a private practice there.<\/p>\n

\"Michael<\/a>
Michael Meyer with his wife and grandkids.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

He and his wife, Voleta, have four children, two of whom went to Carolina. About 10 years ago, Meyer reduced his private practice workload to part time and decided\u2014when his oldest son, Joshua, began graduate school at UNC\u2019s School of Journalism and Mass Communication<\/a>\u2014that he would finally finish up that bachelor\u2019s degree with the aim of the two graduating together. His son earned his M.A. in 2008 but Meyer, taking just one class at a time, still had more work to do.<\/p>\n

In all, he took three online courses and got permission from UNC to take the required inorganic chemistry class and organic chemistry lab at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg. Going to class involved a 2\u00bd-hour roundtrip commute.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe online courses were challenging but not overwhelming,\u201d said Meyer. \u201cThe chemistry courses\u2014largely because chemistry is challenging and secondly because I last took chemistry 45 years ago\u2014were very<\/em> challenging. I had to relearn a lot of old stuff, and a lot of the basics have changed.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for his classmates, \u201cit took them a while to think of me as a student, but they were very accepting,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He confessed that he chose online courses that he thought he would have a leg up on\u2014child psychology, environmental geography and human anatomy and physiology. \u201cThey were nice refreshers. And again, a lot of stuff has changed.\u201d<\/p>\n

He will not be on campus to attend Commencement but is throwing himself a graduation party to celebrate with his family and friends, who have been supportive of his return to school.<\/p>\n

\u201cI loved my time at Chapel Hill. I feel like I grew up there,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s why I was so motivated to get this degree. All these years it\u2019s been a very significant part of my identity.\u201d<\/p>\n

By Geneva Collins<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr, Michael Meyer will graduate with a bachelor\u2019s degree in chemistry May 10, nearly five decades after he set foot on campus as a freshman in 1967.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":10520,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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