“New Inspiration”: A Transfer Student Finds Her Footing at Empire State University

(SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY – May 9, 2025) When Samantha Paige crosses the stage at Empire State University’s Albany commencement ceremony, she won’t just be marking the completion of her bachelor’s degree; she’ll be celebrating a milestone she once doubted was possible. 

For Paige—who has been working toward a B.S. in interdisciplinary studies with concentrations in hospitality, tourism, the arts, and management—the road to graduation began at SUNY Potsdam, where she enrolled as an early childhood education major in 2017. Her time in the program was short-lived though, thanks to a 2018 internship at Disney that convinced her to pursue other career options. She soon switched her major to “undecided,” eventually finding herself in the institution’s then-recently introduced arts management track.  

“At that time, it was the closest thing to hospitality that my school offered,” Paige explains. But the classes, which focused on subjects like set building, weren’t exactly what the Saratoga Springs native had in mind. “It ended up being super theater- and museum-based, which wasn’t really what I wanted,” she says. 

And then, the pandemic hit. Challenged by the notion of completing “hands-on classes” virtually and starting to lose motivation, she says, Paige decided to “take a break” from school and “wait for COVID to die out.” 

But, as luck would have it, re-enrolling in classes the following year wasn’t as easy as she thought it would be.  

“I still felt like my motivation wasn’t there, like I was checked out,” Paige says. “I was not in a good place to be in school.” 

Opting to take more time off, she concentrated on landing a full-time job instead. And though Paige did secure a well-paying position as a special education aide in an elementary school, the urge to complete her degree never quite went away. She just wasn’t sure how to move forward.  

“I thought, I don’t have time to get an education in person. I need to figure out an alternative route,” Paige recalls. 

Determined to earn her bachelor’s, she ultimately forged a new path at SUNY Empire, where she’s spent the past year. She credits her mother, Christine Paige—an Empire State alum and the university’s executive director of Empire Online—with encouraging her to consider the institution. Paige’s mentor at the university, associate professor Lisa D’Adamo-Weinstein, also proved influential to her journey. She recalls a particularly impactful meeting with D’Adamo-Weinstein, who—after speaking with Paige about her interests and career goals—created a program for the student and “handed it to me on a silver platter,” Paige says. 

“I had never experienced anything like that within my education. [Before SUNY Empire] I just felt like a lot of my wants were overlooked and that my advisors weren’t really hearing what I was saying,” she adds. “When I met with [D’Adamo-Weinstein] and she did all this for me, it was like a new inspiration. It just felt like, finally, someone was hearing what I wanted out of my education.” 

With renewed drive, Paige dove back into her studies, wrapping up her remaining coursework while also relocating to her family’s new home base in Florida and maintaining a full-time job.  The icing on the cake? She’s now graduating with honors, which is “something I’m really proud of,” she says. 

Naturally, it’s also a proud moment for her mother, Christine, who says that watching Paige take the stage at commencement “will be an incredibly emotional moment.” 

“As a parent, you always want your children to succeed—but when that success comes after real-life detours and determination, it carries an even greater weight,” she says, noting that—like Paige—she too began her education at SUNY Potsdam before ultimately earning her degree at SUNY Empire. “[At commencement] I’ll be thinking not just about [Samantha’s] academic accomplishments, but about the strength and courage it took for her to come back and finish what she started. In that moment, I’ll be celebrating her graduation [and] the full-circle moment it represents for both of us—two generations, one shared legacy, and a deep gratitude for an institution that helped us both reach our goals.”