After a life that has brought plenty of challenges, Jess Michael found a way to navigate her education and graduate with her associate degree.
Jess Michael still remembers writing her first book that inspired her to become a writer.
She was six.
Titled “Lizzy the Fish,” it was a tale about a fish that was different. It helped set the stage for Michael’s life the next several decades, mimicking her life without her truly understanding it.
“It was very intricate with the ins and outs of friendship. It was really cute and I drew it,” she said. “Pushing through all of that, I think now that I am 34 years old, I look back at it because I was struggling because I wasn’t diagnosed as neurodivergent at that age.”
After a life that has brought plenty of challenges, Michael found a way to navigate her education and graduate. The editor-in-chief of The Schoolcraft Connection, Michael will walk across the state May 3 and receive her associate degree from Schoolcraft College.
Michael has taken a long pathway to get to this moment. A high school dropout, Michael ended up marrying young and having two of her three children in her early 20s. Her then husband found work out of state, so she and her family up and moved to places like Missouri and Oklahoma. When she began thinking about what she wanted to do beside parenting, she thought the military was the right move, but a motorcycle accident left her with an injury that prevented that from happening.
Michael decided it was time to go back to her original passion: writing. However, it had been some time since she was in school, she decided attending college would be the next step. She applied for the Michigan Reconnect and received it, prompting her to enroll at Schoolcraft, her local community college. Without that critical scholarship, she never would have been able to go back to school.
“The fact that my tuition is completely covered is a big relief, because I know that many people in my age group have kids and are married. It’s really hard to navigate working a full-time job or being a full-time parent or both while coming to school,” Michael. “The fact that Reconnect offers that is so relieving and having that resource is incredibly important.”
Michael jumped right into the community college life, taking classes and getting involved with The Schoolcraft Connection, the student newspaper on campus. After serving different roles on the paper’s staff the first year, she became editor-in-chief this past year, leading the newsroom and helping to tell stories all over the campus.
Michael got to know many of the international and neurodivergent students who wanted to get involved at the newspaper. She made it a goal of hers to make sure the Connection was as welcoming as it could be to any student interested in joining the staff.
“I realized I wanted to leave behind after I graduate. A safe place for everyone else, where there is inclusivity and diversity,” she said. “That was very important to me so that everyone felt that they could come and achieve something and have a place that they could always like come to.”
Michael said she plans on pursuing her bachelor’s degree in English after graduation, with her eyes set on the University of Michigan. She plans on attending the Great Lakes Arts,
Cultures, and Environment program up north this summer offered through U of M, taking some courses. It’s her hope one day to own her own publishing company to help independent publishers.
Michael has valued her time at Schoolcraft, which truly helped her realize her full potential and who she is.
“It doesn’t matter your age or where you come from. You will find acceptance and love when you’re with the right people,” she said. “I have been taught by Schoolcraft that you’re not just here to learn academics, you’re here to discover yourself.”