Spending just five minutes with John Stump helps one easily understand how grateful he is to be attending classes at JCCC. In fact, unrehearsed, Stump quickly and proudly recalls key dates that helped change his life.

“I remember walking across the stage a year ago last May 12, and the president of this school handed me my diploma for my GED and said, ‘Welcome, and would you please come to my college?,’ “ Stump said. “I said, ‘I’d be honored to come to your college.’ “

“The moment I walked off the stage, I was so elated with a feeling of gratification,” Stump added. “I can’t even describe it. And then the moment I sat in my chair, it was gone, and then the new zeal to go to college came into focus.”

Stump said he remembers how nervous and anxious he was on Aug. 18, when he started his first day at JCCC. For someone who hadn’t been to school since 1972 when he dropped out of 10^th grade, Stump said he was questioning his decision to go to college.

“I was full of doubt and fear again,” he recalled. “I was telling myself, ‘You’re way out of place. What are you doing here? I’m at school with 22,000 students, and I’m 56 years old.’ “

Stump said he remembers that moment and how it was hard to inhale. Then, he took a deep breath and reassured himself that he had every right to be here.

“It was nerve-racking the first few weeks, don’t get me wrong,” Stump said. “I’d drive up in the parking lot, and I’d say ‘I’m really part of this? I do go to school here? I’m in college after being a dropout in 1972? Why yes, I am! Do I love it? Yes, I do!’ ”

Another important date was at the end of that same semester when Stump received three As and two Bs. He received a letter from JCCC congratulating him for making the Dean’s List, one of only three percent of students who received this highest academic recognition.

“I said, ‘Surely you’ve got the wrong guy,’ “Stump remembers. “That letter from Dr. Calaway is at home on my counter encased in a glass frame, and that is what inspires me to come each day. I want to be here. I want to learn.”

From the Writing Center and the Math Resource Center to quality faculty members and innovative career programs, Stump said everything is here at JCCC for an individual to do whatever he or she wants to do. He added that professors and staff provide 100 percent caring, and he has quickly embraced the opportunity to learn.

“I’m just not going to school. I am part of this school,” Stump said. “I’m part of something tangible that I can touch, feel and see. This is college. This is as real as it gets.”