David Arps Is a Single Father With a Single Purpose To End the Summer With Three Degrees

Come the end of the summer, David Arps will possess six degrees of education. 

This summer alone, he’s collecting three degrees from the University of Cincinnati: an associate degree in nursing from

Raymond Walters College

, a baccalaureate in accounting from the

McMicken College of Arts & Sciences

and another baccalaureate in information technology from the

College of Applied Science

.  At the June 10 morning commencement ceremonies at the University of Cincinnati, he’ll receive his nursing degree.  At the end of the summer, he’ll receive the accounting and IT degrees.

David will add his mounting pile of diplomas to those previously earned: baccalaureates in philosophy and linguistics in 1991 and an associate degree in accounting in 2004.  Number seven will be his next baccalaureate – in nursing from the College of Nursing come spring 2006. 

“In a way, things are coming full circle for me,” David explained.  “I originally entered UC as a traditional-aged student back in the mid-1980s as pre-med.  Then, I found myself attracted to so many other intellectual interests and eventually went to work as an entrepreneur and then in the hotel business.  Now, I’m back to the medical field.”

David returned to medicine in a round-about way – by almost dying. 

It was in 1996 while he was working as a music producer with his own business (Beat Box Music) in Over-the-Rhine.  Late one night, he was attacked, mugged while walking to his car.  Davis was so seriously injured from blows to the head that he had no vital signs when he was taken to University Hospital.  He recalls, “They’d actually called my father and my sister to come down and I.D. the body.  They really didn’t think I was going to make it…. I tell people that I’m a Leo who is on his last life now, and I’m making the most of it!”

Subsequently, David began working in accounting and information technology – using skills he’d honed in his own business and putting them to work as an accounting manager at the Sheraton Four Points Hotel. 

Then came September 2001 and a downturn in the travel business.  David was laid off and looking for work.  He states, “For every one or two ads for accountants, you’d see ten pages of ads looking for nurses.  Everything just came together for me, my early interest in medicine, the time I’d spent in the hospital being cared for by nurses and even the economic trends.  I wanted to do something that mattered, something valuable so that when I came home at the end of the day tired, it was worth the price. ”

So, David started in a pre-nursing program at UC in 2003, all while continuing with the accounting and IT classes he’d been taking all along.  Having spent years attending accounting and IT classes part-time at the university, he just couldn’t walk away from those degrees so close to completion.  That’s why David kept taking a few of those courses while going full bore on the nursing program. 

If that weren’t enough, David began raising his son, Aron, 8, as a single father when  Aron was two years old.  In fact, Aron, whose mother died of a heart attack, has been coming to class with his dad since the age of four.  David explains, “He’ll take notes, draw what he sees up on the board.  The first time Aron wrote cursive he did it in class with me.  He looked up and said, ‘Hey, Dad, I wrote cursive.’” 

David admits that it’s been an exhausting few years.  “Last summer,” he says, “I was down to about 125 pounds when I normally weigh about 175, but I’ve discovered that determination is 99 percent of things.  If you want it, you can do it.  And, I always joke, ‘There’s light at the end of the head concussion.’”

David hopes to be working full-time as a registered nurse by September while pursuing his bachelor’s degree in nursing.  “Then,” he says, “I want to practice professionally and play with my son.”