During the late 1980s, I was beginning a low-cost journey to the European continent with a travel partner. Since my travel mate was exploring starting a postgraduate program in New York, we had arranged a two-week stay there en route to London.
We got to the graduate housing, a sizeable ten-floor structure on the Manhattan's Upper West Side known as International House. Setting down our luggage, we headed straight to the dining hall, where we grabbed food, found a table, and started talking to other diners.
Beside me was an gentleman from Iraq studying engineering at an Ivy League institution. He inquired what I did, and I told him that I had recently completed my studies with a degree in science and had been working on studies using an electron microscope.
He noted that there was an microscopy facility at the institution – close to the engineering faculty, which was the reason he was familiar with it. He suggested that I ought to seek a job with them. I laughed it off, explaining that I was about to fly to Europe and, more critically, I didn’t have a US visa.
A day later I went out exploring, coming back to the dining hall that after dark. The engineering student came up to me and told me that he had organized a discussion for me with the director of the microscopy lab at Columbia. Since he had made the arrangement, I went to the meeting – but straight off informed my interviewer that I was without a work permit, so I was unable to accept the role.
Reflecting the city's spirit – a city where anything feels possible – she responded: “We'll handle it. When can you start?” I missed my plane to London.
I was employed there for a trio of years. An advantage of the role was that I was granted free tuition at Columbia, and I seized the chance to earn a graduate degree in global studies.
We didn't cross paths after that and I don’t even know his name, but his remarkable generosity changed my life in so many ways. I lacked the bravery or self-assurance to approach someone at an elite institution and ask for a job. Moreover, I had always wanted to pursue education overseas, but could never have afforded it without that educational benefit.
Critically, that job in New York resulted in a role in Europe where I met my wonderful partner, with whom I am raising a family of four kids. That encounter altered everything. That kind stranger redirected my path in life, and I’m forever grateful.
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