It took Georgina Segura eight years to finish college.

Too many parties.

Birthday parties, that is.

She’s a single mom with two kids.

It took so long that her daughter, Christina, 20, joined her two years ago as a student at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.

“People stop me and say: ‘Is your sister Christina?’ ” she says. “We look similar.”

After all, there aren’t all that many years between the two coeds.

Georgina was 16 when she got pregnant with Christina. She married a year later and had a son, Ian. She managed to finish high school, but ended up divorced with two babies to raise alone.

Until now, Georgina, 36, was reliving the hardships of her mother, Rosario, a Cuban immigrant who married, had two children and divorced. Her mom worked long hours as a housekeeper to support Georgina and her brother, first in Key West and then in the Springs. (She still cleans at American Furniture Warehouse.)

After her own divorce, Georgina and her kids moved in with her mom. (And they all still live with her.)

Georgina often worked several low-wage jobs at a time.

“Any way to make the American dollar,” she says. “Somebody always needs shoes or food or lunch money. You don’t think about your future. You think: ‘How will I survive, make it to the next paycheck?’”

Still, Georgina was determined to make a better life. She started at Pikes Peak Community College in 2002, fitting in homework between grunt work.

“I cleaned houses. I baby sat. House sat. Pet sat. You name it,” she says. “The only thing I haven’t done is sold flowers on a street corner.”

Not that she wouldn’t have done that.

After Pikes Peak, she went to UCCS. There, she earned a Karen Possehl Women’s Endowment “Unstoppable Woman” scholarship, a program that provides mentoring and stipends to nontraditional female students.

It wasn’t a full ride. She took out loans and worked.

“There were definitely days I wanted to throw up my arms and quit,” she says.

But that would send the wrong message to her kids. She wanted them to learn the value of education.

And they did. Which means more parties.

Ian graduates from Doherty High this month and is headed to college.

Georgina isn’t just the first in her family to get a college diploma. She’ll graduate with two degrees, in nursing and psychology. After passing her state nursing boards, she hopes to work in an intensive care unit.

“I have the background to say: ‘Hey, it works. This is what you need to do,’” she says.

“My children now see that if a single mom can get a degree, they have no excuses.”

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Georgina Segura Photo by ANDREA BROWN/THE GAZETTE

Andrea Brown, Your Space Columnist Photo by