In 1967, David Norman was a drug dealer in upstate New York. In 1995, he was finishing up six years at Mohawk Correctional Facility after being charged with manslaughter. In 2016, he walked across the stage as the oldest member of his class to receive his bachelor’s degree in Philosophy from Columbia University.
Norman’s path to success was rocky, and much different than most of his classmates at Columbia.
His decades-long battle with substance abuse began early very in life in Harlem, according to the New York Daily News. He was drinking by age 11, using heroin by 15, and spent a total of one day in high school.
“I was a very shy kid, and I was also selling narcotics, and in that capacity you were taught not to show feelings. One of the things I realized early was that when I got high, I was able to function socially, which was one of my biggest problems,” said Norman in a Columbia press release.
Norman’s list of arrests, mainly for robbery and drug trafficking, is long. However, it wasn’t until the 1990s that he was put into jail for a long time. Norman was sentenced to six years after he fatally stabbed a man in a street fight, the Daily News reports.
In prison, he began to read more, learn more, and helped run a program that taught life skills to help inmates reintegrate into society.
“I had a moment of clarity in which I was able to recognize everything I had done at that point was fairly counter-productive and I needed to engage in some new activities and some new behaviors,” Norman told the Daily News.
He walked out of prison in 2000 ready to do good, and devoted the second half of his life to helping the vulnerable. He got a job as an outreach worker at Mount Vernon Hospital and helped other substance abusers access services that would help them. That led to a job working for a community health program at Columbia University. While there, he was accepted into Columbia’s School of General Studies 10 years ago.
“It was a great feeling,” he told the Daily News. “It’s always possible to pursue your dreams.”
Norman is currently working as a research assistant at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. He also volunteers with the Coming Home Program at Riverside Church, where he mentors recently released ex-cons, according to the Daily News.
Norman is planning on writing a book about his life, maybe to be called “You Don’t Have to Wait as Long as I Did.” He serves as some serious grad inspiration, especially after remaining sober for 20 years. Congrats David!