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COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO. --

It's graduation day for the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs class of 2012, the final step in getting that coveted diploma.

While your college commencement represents four years worth of work, for Melissa Lucero it's the end of a 23 year process.

"The journey stopped when he came into my life. So, I figured I could finish as he started to go onto his own life," Melissa Lucero, college graduate said.

In 1988, Lucero was a pregnant first year California community college student but she eventually dropped out, to work full-time.

Though her studies took a break, she was never far from a college campus.

Lucero started working at UCCS in 2010 and was determined to graduate, this time with her son.

"I saw her go back to school while I was still in high school so she'd come back late and after working," Jeff Tejada, Lucero's son said.

Lucero has spent the past two years taking a full course load, working 40 hours a week, all while caring for her five children.

"It was pretty important to me so I stuck with it even though there were many times I just wanted to give up and say this is just getting too hard," Lucero said.

But she pushed through and never let her hard days ruin years worth of work.

Friday she's celebrating her accomplishment, taking a picture to document the journey that started and ended with her son.

Lucero has one class left to take, which she said will be completed this summer.