Charlotte author Subrina Hough shared tips and pointers to help young adults in their college careers during last week’s Brown Bag Book Club meeting.
Hough is the author of “From Momma’s House to College: The Parent’s Guide to Getting their Child into College.”
Book club president Dianne Welch said that Hough had books for sale and the response from attendees was “very positive.”
Welch said that Hough shared a lot of tips and pointers to help that young adult to reach their goals in life by attending college.
Hough said that her presentation was “the same one that I share with parents of students that are in need of understanding the basic of applying to college,” but she also shared her personal plight of being a student in middle and high school who did not have anyone to encourage — or even share — the process with her for college.
“I was a good student, was not any trouble, and this was a hard reality check when it hit me that no one took the time to share college with me,” Hough said.
Welch said that Hough had good advice for parents on making this happen and offers personal help to anyone who needs it to achieve their dream of a college education.
Hough said that first and foremost, she hopes that the attendees gained that they are equipped with the tools to now share another resource for parents and students who desire to get walk through the college process and graduate.
“Secondly, [she hopes they gained] that every child desires the option of college, and lastly, the book is that tool that can bridge the gap for families with children of all ages,” Hough said.
“The overall goal is to give parents and students a tool that will guide them through the process of not only getting in to college but to add the resources that will enable them to graduate from college,” she said. “I was doing the work long before my book was birthed.”
Hough’s company, Parent’s Point of View, Inc., was inspired by the need to send her oldest son off to college, and that would be followed by sending her next two sons, as well.
Hough said that in 2002, she did not know how she would send her son to college, but he wanted to go and she had to figure out the process.
“I then realized that I was not the only parent that did not know how to send their children to college but that had a desire,” she said. “Fast-forwarding to last year, the inspiration for my book actually grew from the realization of a hurt that had as a young person.”
Hough grew up in Charlotte, and lived five miles away from Johnson C. Smith University, yet she was 47 years old the very first time she stepped foot onto the campus.
Hough had a meeting with Lisa Santiago McNeill, who would later become her publisher at Empowerment Publishing & Multimedia in Charlotte.
“She is the Coaches Coach, that flushed out the skills and talents that were hidden, buried and filed away so deep that I needed a complete overhaul to unearth them,” Hough said. “Lisa revived my thinking process and that’s when ‘From Momma’s House to College’ was manifested.”
Hough said they started the process in February 2017 and the book went on Amazon that November.
When asked were there challenging moments in the process, Hough gave a strong example.
“One of the biggest [challenges] was still not seeing myself as an author and not being able to overcome being that student that felt overlooked so many years ago,” Hough said. “The motivation to keep going and to still continue now is that if I give up no one cares, but everyone will miss out on what was purposed for my life to share.”
When asked was the road after publishing easier than before, Hough said that it was an interesting question, whether it was because she never thought about it, or because I never sought for an easier way.
“Either way, I have to say that my endurance in and through the process has come up from where it once was of an ‘I can’ mentality, to a current level of ‘I must,’” she said. “I want to share that this first book has opened up the door for my next one, which will be a children’s book, so stay tuned
“I want to thank all my Anson County family,” Hough added. “Most people would ask, ‘Are you related to a lot of people in Anson County’ when I say that because they see family as connections through blood, but I say family because we are connected through love.”
