Jesse Ponnock has something few college students have—a record deal. What’s more unusual is that he couldn’t read music until about two years ago, despite having written songs since the age of 11 using an old acoustic guitar he found in his attic. Rocking out with his high school friends in their band, Blame Summer, the Philadelphia area native knew he wanted a shot at a music career. So he set his sights on the Frost School of Music.

“I came to UM as an education major, but I got overrides to take the full schedule in the Music Engineering Technology program,” Ponnock says. “All I did that year was study and take lessons for classical guitar and to learn to read music. The learning curve for me was unbearable, but I broke it down into steps. It forced me to grow up.”

Ponnock auditioned and was accepted to the program in his sophomore year, the same year that he uploaded his demo tape to mtvU.com. With help spreading the word from sister and former UM Student Government president, Annette Ponnock, A.B. ’07, his parents, and friends, Jesse earned enough online votes to win mtvU’s Best Music on Campus contest. The first UM winner and the only indie folk rock singer-songwriter amid more than 130 pop-punk bands, Ponnock received a record deal from independent label Drive-Thru Records and front page coverage in The Miami Hurricane and the Tropical Life section of the Miami Herald.

On Ponnock’s myspace page, you can listen to the songs he submitted to mtvU—June, Near Fields and Woods and Orchards, and When I Fake My Death (which is what he claims he might do if he gets too famous some day). He admits most of the 30-some songs he’s written thus far are unconventional. They are more like stories or poems and don’t have a traditional chorus.

“The melody becomes the hook rather than a repeating line,” Ponnock explains. “For me it’s not about music, it’s about life. My priority in writing a song is the lyrical content.”

Ponnock closes his eyes and feels the lyrics he’s singing, whether they’re from his own poetic mind or that of another artist. He’s a big Bob Dylan fan, but one of his favorite songs is “Going for the Gold,” a deeply emotional track by Bright Eyes. “I fell in love with this song just by reading the lyrics,” he says.

Now entering his fourth year, Ponnock will continue to write songs for his upcoming album. He is double-majoring in computer science, something that will give him other options if the rock star thing doesn’t work out. But even if he winds up in “a desk job,” he’ll never stop writing music.

“I don’t think you can choose to write songs or poetry,” he says. “If you stop writing, you’ll just explode with all of these things you’re not expressing.”