Their shared achievement was—along with all students—a culmination of a strange year. For their last few semesters at UD, they said that they were like “online school roommates,” with Joe setting up his computer in their family’s dining room and Dylan attending classes in his room.

One of the perks of sharing a home with a fellow student was the ease of finding an extra set of eyes to look over a paper or to help with understanding coursework.

“Thank God for Dylan for helping with my nutritional course, because that was rough,” Joe said. “He offered to help me and I needed him in that moment.”

And when Dylan needed someone to review his (very long) honors thesis, his father was his built-in proofreader. Both graduates made the Dean’s list for the spring semester.

“The university was rigorous, it was all the difficulty I expected because I didn’t want it to be easy,” Joe said. “But at the same time, there were a lot of people who wanted to see me succeed. I have so many professors and staff to thank.”

Because UD has been such a big part of Joe’s life, including his role in University Media Services, which he started in 2008, Dylan spent part of his youth at the University.

“I remember he used to take us to the football games when I was little,” Dylan said. “We would go out on the field and listen to the sound system. Him being at UD was a factor for me attending, whether I want to admit it or not. He planted the seed early in me.”

In 2016-17, Joe, who said he has known President Joseph R. Biden, Jr., AS65, for 30 years, also happened to ask the famous alumnus to do a little video for Dylan to encourage him to attend UD.

“He gets in the camera and says, ‘Dylan, come to Delaware and change the world!’” Joe said.

Now, with their bachelor’s studies in the rearview, Joe and Dylan are ready for their next chapters. Joe was accepted into the electric engineering master’s program at UD and Dylan is taking a gap year to do internships, ideally with a public defender office, before beginning law school.