Jason Committe dabbled in a string of what he now considers “dead-end” jobs before deciding to give college a serious look.

“I did a lot of waiting tables; I did a lot of construction for other people; I did some mechanic work; I used to host music events; I was a DJ for a couple of years; I produced music for a couple of years,” Committe recalls of the numerous positions he held between getting his GED in 1998 and starting classes at Georgia Perimeter College’s Alpharetta Campus three years ago.

These days, Committe is on track to earn an accounting degree from Georgia State University—and he’s already celebrating success toward that goal. The 33-year-old husband and father is among more than 2,000 students who will graduate from Georgia Perimeter May 8 at the Georgia World Congress Center.

“I’ve been wanting to get a degree ever since I was 23 years old,” he says. But Committe kept getting distracted until he met his wife Samantha. After the two married and had a child, Committe’s newfound status as a family man gave him the fire to finally enroll at Georgia Perimeter, where he actually had been admitted a decade earlier.

“Even if you’ve kind of taken the wrong turn in life, if you really stick with it, it will be really great when you accomplish big goals,” Samantha says of her husband’s achievements, noting also that he’s an excellent dad to not only their two-year-old daughter but also to her older son.

While taking classes at Georgia Perimeter, Committe also managed to provide professional bookkeeping services for several clients and work on a development plan with a Buckhead real estate company—jobs he continues to do. He admits it’s not easy studying and working, but he offers an encouraging message for older students like himself contemplating college.

“It’s very, very doable,” Committe says, while acknowledging he has received help from his parents and student loans.

His father and uncle are both accomplished accountants, and his deceased grandfather, Dr. Thomas Committe, served as the founding chair of the accounting and finance department at the University of West Florida in the late ’60s.

“It may be that it does run in the blood because I do come from a line of accountants,” Committe says.

The “accounting gene” is well noted by Committe’s former instructor Kelly Cranford.

“He keeps me on my toes by staying one step ahead of the rest of the class,” she says. “He asks challenging questions and part of the challenge is answering the questions without confusing the rest of the class.”

Committe will take a brief breather following Friday’s commencement before cranking up for the summer session at Georgia State, located just across from Georgia Perimeter in Alpharetta.