Spotlights

My name is Jerrod Pass. I’m a health, safety, and environmental coordinator in the aerospace industry, and I’m a Post University Alumni.

You might be wondering how I got here. Let’s go back to where it all started. I grew up in Jacksonville, North Carolina. Parents weren’t together, so single mother, but everything went well. I played with friends all the time, played video games. I wanted to play football, but back then, I was not that big. I was not that fast. So my grandmother told me the military would probably be the best fit because it would get me into college.

And then this happened.

Closed my eyes, woke up and graduated high school. The next week I went off to basic training. And it took me three years to really believe it, like, wow, I’m actually in the military.

Going into active-duty arm was surreal. It’s knowing that at any moment, you could be called on to be trustworthy, and you’ll have other people respecting you and other people telling you, hey, you know, this is my life. I need you to help me with this.

I went to basic training in South Carolina at Fort Jackson. Once I graduated, I went to South Korea for a year. That was amazing, but also scary. I came back to Fort Houston, Virginia, for about four years. Then I deployed to Iraq for nine months. Once I finished that term, I got promoted to Staff Sergeant, and that’s where I became an Army recruiter in South Hatley, Massachusetts, for three years.

I chose Post University because they had dedicated military advisors that knew my situation in the military and knew how to work around it. I was actually still a recruiter transferring over to civilian life, but they really helped out a lot. They knew exactly how to format the tuition assistance, what classes would be necessary for me to join, and they also had recommendations for classes that going in senior leadership I needed.

They formulated my program around my career. Everything I was learning I could use at that time. The more I learned, the more I could use, the more strategic my job became. And now I’m in a supervisor’s position because of it.

This is the emotional part. Let’s rewind a bit.

We were at commencement, and they were talking about the great things the online and the campus students were doing, and they had a section where all the military personnel were acknowledged and recognized, and they wanted us to stand up. So when I stood up and everyone acknowledged it, that was me getting acknowledgement that you’ve actually accomplished something that you did not think you were going to accomplish.

And so that feeling made me, it almost made me cry. It made me tear up because I didn’t believe in myself enough, but other people around me believed in me to do it. And I accomplished it.

When I was a kid, me and my older brother used to go outside, lay in the grass, and stare at the stars. And we would always figure out which ones were the satellites, which ones weren’t.

I would love to go to space. I love the aspect of finding what has not been found. There’s a lot of things in space that have not been identified; it has not been found. Does not mean it’s there, but I want to be that person to witness it or to find a solution, to find it.

I want to save the planet. I want to do a lot of things. And I feel like my starting point at Post University is what led me to be so confident and open up to all these different opportunities that are coming my way.

Now that’s my story of Post University. Now, let’s create yours.

All right, we done? I got to get back to work. Goodness.