When Jordan Weaver returned to AACC in 2024, he opened his student email to see an unread message sent after he withdrew from his first semester.
“(My professor) emailed me and told me, ‘Keep going, don't let this grade dictate your future.’ She basically said, ‘Don't be too down on it.’ “Weaver promptly retook the class … and aced it.
He said coming to college as a first-generation student in 2021, directly after a pandemic-influenced senior year, was overwhelming. But in the years between, a leadership position at a local Safeway offered opportunities for growth in skills, from payroll and schedules to irate customers, and he knew he was ready.
“I thought, ‘OK, if I can do this for 56 hours a week, I can definitely dedicate some time to go back to school and apply myself this time around.’ Those years away from school were not a pause. They were an education. … I figured out what direction I really wanted to go in.”
He found that direction with a business management degree. Though he worried about fitting in, he found people from all walks of life on campus and in the Ratcliffe Scholarship program, where he was able to pursue independent research reflecting his passion for how policy impacts communities. An ongoing project explores how the social isolation that defined his late high school years still affects students today.
Weaver works for the federal government and plans to intern with Congress this summer. He intends to study economics at Columbia University School of General Studies or the University of Virginia, with the eventual goal of becoming an economic policy advisor.
He urges people to never close the door on making a change. “There is a way that you can still be successful, whatever that way looks like for you.”