Mother and daughter and soon-to-be grads Caren Hunter (CAS’99, SSW’25, Wheelock’25) (left) and Annica Hunter (CGS’23, CAS’25) often met at the Duan Family Center for Computer & Data Sciences during their shared BU tenure. “Annica would use her dining points, that I pay for, to buy me a drink from Saxby’s, and we’d parallel study or just chat and catch up,” Caren says.

COMMENCEMENT 2025

This Mother and Daughter Are Both Graduating from Boston University

Caren Hunter and Annica Hunter: being together on campus has brought them closer

It’s not uncommon for your relationship with your parents to change when you’re in college. As you slowly mature into an independent adult, you often start to connect with them on more of a peer level. But what happens when one of your parents is actually your peer?

Mom and daughter Caren Hunter (CAS’99, SSW’25, Wheelock’25) and Annica Hunter (CGS’23, CAS’25) are both graduating from Boston University on Sunday, May 18, at BU’s 152nd Commencement ceremony. They have spent the past two years as fellow Terriers, with Caren getting a dual master’s degree in social work and special education, while Annica has been pursuing an undergraduate degree in marine science.

Neither expected to end up as classmates. But both say they’ve enjoyed it.

“I think being students together has allowed our relationship to develop beyond what it was when I was in high school,” Annica says. “It’s felt more like having real adult conversations; we’re both in this space, trying to figure out pieces of ourselves while slogging through assignments, and that’s allowed us to have a shared dynamic.”

Her mother agrees.

“I’ve particularly loved the opportunity to sit in the same space as Annica, while she’s figuring out who she is,” Caren says. The two often met up at the Duan Family Center for Computing & Data Sciences. “She would use her dining points, that I pay for, to buy me a drink from Saxby’s, and we’d parallel study or just chat and catch up,” Caren says. “Getting that different kind of access to her, and hearing how she’s thinking about things, has been the most special thing to me.”

So how did they both end up at BU?

It starts with homeschooling—and with each other.

An unconventional journey to BU 

Annica, the eldest of four, was diagnosed with dyslexia early on in her schooling. Dyslexia, as she learned, runs in families—her dad is dyslexic, and so are two of her siblings. She was struggling in the traditional school system and having a hard time accessing support. So Caren and her husband, fellow BU alum Andrew Hunter (CGS’97, Wheelock’99), decided to try homeschooling.

Caren ended up homeschooling Annica from second grade to eighth grade. (She homeschooled two of Annica’s siblings until the eighth grade, too. The youngest opted for regular school.) Annica went on to a small private academy for high school. At that point, she was actually thriving in the school system, she says—but then COVID-19 struck, completely disrupting her junior and senior years. So when it came time to apply for college, Annica says, she was ready for “a little bit of space between me and school.” 

Cue BU’s College of General Studies.

CGS students have a gap semester in the fall, and start on campus in January of spring semester. During their gap semester, they can work, travel, volunteer, or take a class or two. At the end of sophomore year, they declare a major and transfer to another BU school for their last two years. It was perfect for Annica. She spent her gap semester as a crew member at a backcountry B&B for the Appalachian Mountain Club—and the electives she took through CGS allowed her to discover a field she loves: marine science.

She raves about BU’s marine semester, where marine science students spend a fall semester performing fieldwork around New England (and optionally, in Belize, which Annica opted to do). In many ways, she has her mom to thank for her experiences, she says.

“I do think that me being in college is a testament to my mom’s decision back in second grade to be like, ‘Well, this child doesn’t like learning right now, but she has it in her somewhere!’” Annica says. “If I’d stayed in school, discouraged by the fact that I couldn’t do everything that my classmates could do, I don’t think I would have gained the skills to be able to engage in the type of learning I’m doing now.”

Next chapter for mom—a return to BU

Caren, meanwhile, already had one BU degree. 

She graduated from the College of Arts & Sciences in 1999 with a bachelor’s in history. She says she absolutely loved her time as a BU undergrad. She was on the women’s rowing team, and she met her husband here. After spending years homeschooling their kids, she started to contemplate what to do with the next chapter of her life when their youngest chose traditional schooling. 

Caren quickly realized she wanted to go back to school—this time to learn how to help kids and parents get the support that her own family had needed.

“I realized that the work of supporting kids with learning differences—not learning disabilities—and navigating difficult school systems had really shaped my life,” she says. “And while I had all this life experience, I didn’t actually have the academic background for what I’d been doing.”

BU offers a dual MSW/EdM in either special education or educational leadership. Caren enrolled in the former. (She did the program full-time, teaching CrossFit on the side and raising her two youngest children, a teen and a preteen.) On the social work side, her studies taught her about the systems we live within, and what it takes to change them. On the education side, she studied how people with learning differences process information and evidence-based ways to support students and their families. 

It was both eye-opening and validating to finally have the language to articulate the learning concepts she’d adopted for her own kids, Caren says. (Her methods were the result of endless amounts of research and scouring parent forums, she says.) When it came to reading, “it feels like a grace of God moment that I was able to stumble onto an understanding of the type of instruction that my kids needed, [what I know now is called] systematic instruction.” 

It was also frustrating. “I’ve learned that you, as a parent, can ask for things [in the school system] that I didn’t know about back then,” she says. “From a special-education perspective, I now have a much better sense of what you can advocate for.”

Going forward, she’s more interested in shaping special-ed policy than she is in becoming a special-ed teacher. That’s largely because of her daughter. 

One thing she keeps returning to, Caren says, is “how do you not only support kids like Annica, but how do you impact the education systems so that it’s easier for kids to get the support they need all the way through their schooling? 

“In some ways, the whole reason why I ended up back at BU is because of Annica.” 

The next chapter, for both daughter and mother 

Both mom and daughter recognize that their fields are fraught with question marks.

Conservation science—which Annica wants to go into—is often linked to climate change, an area that has seen deep cuts in federal funding for scientific research in recent months. And Caren is graduating as the Department of Education, which provides funds to school districts to support students with disabilities, faces an uncertain future among federal efforts to shutter it. 

That’s not exactly encouraging, both acknowledge. But it’s not going to stop them from moving forward, either.

“What if it works out?” Annica posits. “I think we’re both trying to live in this perspective of believing there will be open doors if we keep looking for them, and not giving in to the crushing weight of ‘what if it doesn’t work?’”

That perspective is a choice, she stresses. It’s one that’s served both of them so far, from her unconventional journey to academic success to her mom successfully juggling grad school and internships alongside a job and two kids at home. 

“It’s a choice to continue to believe there will be opportunities,” Annica says. “Both of us are figuring out how to embrace that right now, and accepting that there will be bumps and bruises along the way.”

Her mom agrees (and, of course, she knows best): “Nobody gets through life without getting a little banged up.”