“I’d been putting it off because I didn’t have the money or...

“I’d been putting it off because I didn’t have the money or time.  But a program at the VA offered to help with tuition, so I enrolled in Empire State College.  I wasn’t there to play.  I wasn’t there to party.  My only goal was to get an education. And more than the degree, I discovered that I needed the people.  I met people at college that I could bounce ideas off.  People who could challenge me to go further with my interests.  Two of my mentors were Dr. Fullard and Professor Whiteside.  Both of them had retired from corrections so they had a passion for helping black males.  They’d tell me: I notice you have a strong ability for ‘such and such,’ and I’d love to see you develop it further.  So that’s what I did.  Even though I majored in business, I found myself learning all about history and economics.  Right now I’m reading a book about the Haitian Revolution.  It has nothing to do with my major, but it’s important to me.  It’s part of my personal curriculum.  And that’s the most important thing that I got from college.  I got a degree.  But more importantly I developed a personal curriculum that I’ll be using for the rest of my life.