January 7, 2026

Surviving calculus and cancer: Ferris State grad Allyssa Baade faces challenges as she earns a degree

When Allyssa Baade made a second go-around at pursuing higher education, she never expected to face a life-altering diagnosis that could have shut those plans down instantly.

Weeks away from becoming the first in her family to obtain a bachelor’s degree, Baade was hit by a flood of emotions while sitting in a hospital room.

“The doctor came in and said, ‘You have oral cancer.’ It was crazy. Not in a million years did I think that’s what the doctor would say,” she said. “Even though my husband thought it was cancer before we actually knew, I thought that was crazy.”

Baade was born and raised in Muskegon and always had an interest in journalism. Her father received his associate degree years ago, and as the middle child of three girls, Baade is the first of her siblings to pursue a college degree.

A calling for journalism initially led her to Muskegon Community College, as she hoped to improve on her academic standing while studying locally.

“I graduated high school by the skin of my teeth, so I did what felt like the right thing and went to Muskegon Community College in 2013,” she said. “But I ended up falling below a 1.0 GPA and eventually dropped out.”

Baade found a new passion shortly after finding a manufacturing job in West Michigan. She noted that the good pay and ability to grow led to her falling in love with the industry, so much so that Baade worked different roles at multiple companies and made a second attempt at college. Only this time she had a concrete plan to graduate.

While working at Howmet Aerospace in 2022, Baade received her associate degree in Manufacturing Engineering Technology from Muskegon Community through a pathway transfer program that coincidentally ended shortly after she completed her degree at MCC.

The program also gave her the option to continue pursuing a bachelor’s degree in the same field of study at either Ferris State University or Western Michigan University. Baade said multiple factors led her to becoming a Bulldog.

"I liked the classes more at Ferris,” she said. “It was easier for me since they offered classes in Grand Rapids for working adults, which was also a big reason why I chose Ferris. The G.R. campus was a lot closer and there’s a good rotation of classes. But the only downside of that program was the availability. The classes I needed to take are only offered in Grand Rapids every two years, otherwise they’re offered on the main campus in Big Rapids.

“So, I had two rules: minimizing time by doing whatever it takes to graduate on time or early, and minimizing the drive since I didn’t want to travel from Muskegon to Big Rapids,” Baade said.

Baade was able to finalize her plan with the program coordinator to graduate earlier, but this required a heavy course load in the fall 2024 semester – her biggest academic challenge yet.

“Unfortunately, that was around the same time I was diagnosed with cancer,” she said.

Baade struggled with a canker sore on her tongue months before that semester, and it progressively got worse. This led to seeing an oral surgeon in October 2024, who scheduled her an appointment University of Michigan Health in Ann Arbor the following day.

The second opinion eventually led to a gut-wrenching reality: stage-four oral cancer.

“Turns out I was just unlucky since there was no reason for me to have gotten it. It was just a freak thing. I turned 30 and was supposed to graduate from Ferris State that year,” she said.

A successful yet demanding nine-hour surgery led to the almost entire right side of her tongue being replaced with a graft from her arm. Five days later she was released from the hospital, and Baade believed that maintaining a positive attitude was the only thing that could get her through a trying process.

Chemo and radiation began a short time after the surgery and lasted months, as Baade said the recovery was the “worst part, in my opinion.” Losing her ability to speak for over two months, catching pneumonia, and requiring a feeding tube from October 2024 to June 2025 were just a handful of hardships that became Baade’s reality.

As she struggled through illness and slowly working toward being able to speak and eat again, the mission never changed.

“None of this felt like a good enough reason to desert my plans from graduating, and despite the diagnosis I finished my courses,” she said.

Baade was determined to continue her studies at Ferris State. She finished her heavy course load in fall 2024 by working ahead of schedule and completing an accelerated course just days before her surgery.

Baade said having support and compassion from her professors and classmates both in and out of the classroom helped her to stay on track, noting that she couldn’t have done it without them as she came close to giving up on school.

“I truly have never been closer to dropping out than I was during chemo and radiation. I felt an obligation to myself to finish what I started, and failing was never an option,” she said. “I even stayed up for 30-straight hours studying for my calculus exam – hence my cap slogan “I survived cancer, I survived calculus.”

Although she fell just shy of a goal to graduate with honors with a 3.38 GPA, Baade knows she had to give herself grace amongst her high expectations. Through cancer and through college, she said she knew that “your attitude is everything” and staying positive is what helped her heal physically - and eventually led to crossing the graduation stage.

Now with her degree in hand and a promotion in the works at Howmet Aerospace, Baade looks forward to more responsibility in her engineering career, primarily leading manufacturing conversations at work and potentially at community colleges.

She admitted it comes with a bit of anxiety considering the cancer altered her speaking ability but recognizes she didn’t work this hard to shy away from another challenge.

“I tell my little sister all the time that people can do hard things more than they think,” Baade said. “Hard things are possible to overcome, even multiple at once, if the end goal means enough to you.”