After a successful career in communications, Carol Beckerman felt that something was missing in her life. In 2015, she closed her communications agency, sold her home, and moved to Northern California to join a PhD program at the California Institute of Integral Studies.
After an extended absence from higher education, returning to the academic world was a challenge, but she leaned on JVS SoCal’s Scholarship Program to complete her research and earn her doctorate degree.
The following Q&A took place at the 2025 Scholarship Awards Ceremony. Some parts have been edited for clarity.
JVS SoCal: You decided to go back to school in your sixties. Tell me about it.
Carol: I had been working in medical communications for nearly 30 years, and I was looking to make a change. I had gotten very involved with meditating — I started meditating for the first time when I was 15 and did it on and off throughout my life — Then, I decided to go back to it and found a teacher that I really enjoyed.
I was meditating daily, and I felt like that was something that was really important to me because I saw the value of it in society and for individuals.
Someone then sent me an article that said that the Veterans Administration (VA) was doing research on the value of Transcendental Meditation for veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). And that struck a chord for me.
I had been married to a Vietnam vet, and I know that for him—in his time—treatments were nonexistent, really. I felt like that was something that was a calling to me.
JVS SoCal: So, you went back to school to study meditation, to pursue that calling?
Carol: I went back to school with the intention of performing a six-week program to teach meditation to veterans with PTSD.
I had already been teaching meditation and doing eight-week courses, both at my temple and at the local Osher Lifelong Learning Institute in Long Beach. I had been teaching [meditation] to seniors, and I knew the effects of it and I wanted to try that same program with veterans. My intention was to do a research project to see what I can learn.
JVS SoCal: And then you finally decide to go back to school to research whether or not the meditation program would be effective. How did you find out about the JVS SoCal scholarship?
Carol: When you’re going to school and looking for financial help, many scholarships websites… have a pull-down menu that you use to find your department or your discipline. Well, what I’m studying is transformative studies—and that doesn’t show in any pull-down menu.
The only scholarship I found many years when I was first starting out was from the Jewish Foundation in Los Angeles, and then the National Council of Jewish Women three or four years ago.
I thought: “well, look at that, two Jewish organizations! There must be more.” So, I broadened my search and that’s how I found the JVS SoCal Scholarship Program.
JVS SoCal: How important is this scholarship for you to continue your career?
Carol: Oh, you have no idea! It’s allowing me to pay my tuition for this coming semester and partly for the following semester, at which time I have fingers crossed and prayers up to the sky to finish my dissertation. So, it’s allowing me to finish my degree.
JVS SoCal: Any message you want to relate to your scholarship sponsors?
Carol: Oh, absolutely! Gratitude. I’m just filled with gratitude and I’m also grateful that not only that I’m getting the scholarship, but that they recognize the value of what I’m trying to do.
Carol’s scholarship was sponsored by the Roslyn and Abner Goldstine Scholarship Fund and The Jewish Community Foundation Scholarship Fund.
If you’d like to help other students achieve their goals of a higher education, please consider supporting our Scholarship fund.