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In Fort Worth, a town where purple pride runs as deep as the Trinity River, a mother and son recently shared the same commencement stage at TCU, just hours apart.
It wasn’t planned this way. It never is in stories like these.
Brandi Fields, a marketing director in the financial services world, and her son, Kyle Fields, a graduate assistant in TCU’s athletic department, both collected their master’s degrees during the university’s graduate commencement ceremony on Friday.
Hers was an Executive MBA from the Neeley School of Business. His was a Master of Liberal Arts. One family, two purple robes, and a shared moment neither saw coming.
“If I would've waited until I thought I was ready, I would've probably never gone,” Brandi said. The California transplant moved to Fort Worth just as her son was starting his college journey in 2020 — Kyle switched to TCU just two weeks before classes began. Three years later, he’d finished his undergraduate degree and was unsure of what came next.
“My parents kind of put a little bug in my ear,” he said. “Why not keep going?”
Brandi was already doing just that. With her younger son at Texas Tech and Kyle navigating undergrad life at TCU, Brandi found herself an empty nester — and enrolled herself in the Executive MBA program.
“What better way to meet new people, network, and piggyback on the fun my son was having at TCU?” she said.
It turns out, the stars had plans. Neither mother nor son realized at first that they were on a path to graduate at the same time — until the university announced it would combine all graduate programs into one commencement ceremony. “That’s when the light bulb went off that we really have been doing this together,” Brandi said.
Kyle, whose time at TCU included stints as a football student manager, a fraternity member, and a behind-the-scenes contributor to TCU’s 2022 CFP national championship run, was equally floored.
“Everything from high school till now has kind of seemed like the stars have aligned,” he said. “It’s meant to be, it’s how it was supposed to happen.”
Their shared journey wasn’t without its complications. Brandi balanced a full-time remote job — logging in daily from her Fort Worth home for a West Coast-based multifamily office — alongside her MBA coursework. Kyle, meanwhile, managed travel and long hours supporting TCU athletics, squeezing in online classes between equipment hauls and hotel check-ins. “I like to describe it as self-paced with deadlines,” he said.
On some nights, the pair would find themselves on the couch together, side by side, doing homework at 11 p.m.
There were still moments of parenting, Brandi said. The occasional load of laundry. The familiar “Do you have homework?” echoes from the kitchen. But mostly, it was a rare season of sharing — a mother and son tackling academic milestones together.
Now, the family is celebrating in the traditional way: a house full of relatives flying in from California, a backyard gathering with friends and food, and a trip to London and Dublin to top it all off.
“It took effort from the entire family unit,” she said. “It brought us closer together in a lot of ways. But I think just the importance of family and continuing to learn — you’re never too old.”
Said Kyle: “At TCU, it’s definitely the people that made my experience. Everyone — from professors to fraternity brothers to athletes I worked with — was incredibly supportive. It’s the people.”