SMC graduate goes from drug addict to future Berkeley student
Courtney Johnson sat on stage with his 9-year-old son last month, just having accepted an academic achievement award when his child made a remark that superseded the accomplishment just bestowed.
“Daddy, I want to be like you,” he said innocently. “I want to go to college now.”
It was a moment nine years in the making for Johnson, a 28-year-old custodial worker who decided to give education a try for his son’s sake, enrolling at Santa Monica College in 2004.
Johnson will be among more than 600 students who will walk in SMC’s 78th commencement ceremony tonight, each with their own unique stories of how they arrived at the junior college, each with their own dreams for the future.
“To see my son so much smarter than me already, that’s just beautiful,” Johnson, who will receive his degree in psychology and criminal justice, said.
Johnson grew up in South Central Los Angeles, raised by a single mother, losing several childhood friends to gang violence.
Higher education never factored into life until a moment of realization hit while hanging out at SMC where Johnson worked as a custodian.
“A lot of us are afraid to achieve things,” Johnson said. “I was comfortable with being unsuccessful and then the epiphany happened and I wasn’t comfortable with being unsuccessful anymore.”
He enrolled in a psychology course in 2004 and four years later, Johnson is en route to California State University Dominguez Hills to study law enforcement and psychology, a career path influenced by his younger brother who attempted suicide.
For a person who never had an opportunity to walk in his junior high or high school graduation, the commencement ceremony tonight will hold special meaning.
383,“I never ever dreamed of graduating college, especially with honors,” Johnson.
The graduation ceremony will feature keynote speaker Gene Block, who is the chancellor at UCLA, one of the main feeder schools for SMC.
Among the students who will be walking is Mauro Rosales Jr., a 32-year-old West Los Angeles resident who will receive a degree in radio broadcasting, seven years after a food poisoning incident led to Guillaume Barre Syndrome, leaving him paralyzed for nearly three years.
Just 24 years old at the time, the disorder led to a divorce, Rosales’ wife allegedly telling him to “call me when you can move,” and a lost job in accounting at LAX. The series of events led to depression and Rosales decided to make changes.
He enrolled at SMC in 2003.
Rosales plans to transfer to Cal State Dominguez Hills and then to Cal State Northridge, hoping for a career in broadcast journalism.
5CE,“For me, this is one of the biggest steps that I’ve made,” Rosales said. “It’s one of the many steps I have to make.”
“For me, this is one of the biggest steps that I’ve made,”
“It’s one of the many steps I have to make.” — Rosales said
From heroin addict to future college graduate
James Garside felt he was half dead.
“I had overdosed on heroin and meth and alcohol,” Garside said. “I was in a diabetic coma for four days and when I woke up, I was tied down in ICU.”
Post-hospital stay, the first thing Garside reached for was drugs and alcohol.
It was in that moment he realized he had a problem.
Garside grew up in the San Gabriel Valley, self-described as “feminine,” and often subjected to bullying. The South El Monte High School graduate became detached as a result, turning to alcohol and drugs for comfort.
After realizing his problem, Garside began a life of sobriety, which continues more than three years later.
He enrolled at SMC in 2005, taking courses in philosophy, hoping to do his parents proud.
With a degree in philosophy, Garside plans to transfer to University of California at Berkeley in the fall, aspiring to teach the subject at the university level some day.
“It means a lot to me because I’m finally able to show something to my parents, that I’ve accomplished something in my 30 years of existence,” Garside said. “Before it was a lot of heartache for them.”
Jump hedline: SMC graduate goes from drug addict to future Berkeley student
Suggested pullquote: “I never ever dreamed of graduating college, especially with honors.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 10, 2008. Read the original PDF.