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In the final years of the 1980s, I was embarking on a low-cost journey to Europe with a friend. Since my companion was interested in starting a postgraduate program in the Big Apple, we had booked a fortnight visit there en route to London.

We got to the graduate housing, a sizeable 10-storey building on the Manhattan's Upper West Side known as International House. Setting down our luggage, we headed straight to the dining hall, where we got some food, took a seat, and engaged in conversation with fellow residents.

Beside me was an Iraqi man pursuing an engineering degree at Columbia University. He wanted to know what I did, and I shared that I had recently completed my studies with a degree in science and had been working on studies involving microscopic analysis.

He noted that there was an electron microscope unit at Columbia University – right next door to the school of engineering, which was the reason he was familiar with it. He proposed that I ought to seek a role with them. I chuckled at the suggestion, telling him that I was about to fly to Europe and, more critically, I did not possess a US visa.

A day later I went out exploring, coming back to the dining hall that after dark. The man from Iraq approached me and let me know that he had organized a discussion for me with the head of the electron microscope unit at Columbia. Given that he had made the arrangement, I went to the meeting – but right away explained to my interviewer that I lacked the necessary visa, so I was unable to accept the role.

In typical New York fashion – a metropolis where opportunities abound – she responded: “That can be arranged. How soon can you begin?” I didn't board the aircraft to London.

I was employed there for three years. A perk of the job was that I also received no-cost classes at Columbia, and I used the opportunity to finish a master’s of international affairs.

We didn't cross paths after that and I don’t even know his name, but his remarkable generosity transformed my future in so many ways. I lacked the courage or self-assurance to reach out at an Ivy League university and seek a position. And, I had consistently hoped to study abroad, but wouldn't have been able to pay for it without that educational benefit.

Critically, that gig at Columbia led me to a job in Zurich where I got to know my wonderful partner, with whom I am raising four wonderful sons and daughters. That encounter altered everything. That benevolent individual redirected my path in life, and I’m forever grateful.

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