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A man who moved from Yugoslavia to New York without even knowing English is now graduating with an honors degree from an Ivy league university.
Gac Filipaj, 52, first moved to the United States in 1992 when his home country was in the midst of a massive civil war.
Upon his move state-side, he started learning English while working full time as a custodian at Columbia University.
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Proud: Gac Filipaj, 52, first learned English after moving to the United States during the war in Yugoslavia and then moved on to his college degree
After seven years of mastering English, Mr Filipaj began to take advantage of the University's policy that allows all employees to enroll in college courses for free, provided that they are able to hold their own academically.
Widely considered to be the fourth best university in the country- shortly after fellow Ivies Harvard, Princeton and Yale- it is no small feat that Mr Filipaj was able to compete with much younger classmates.
Throughout this time, he was also holding a full-time custodian position at night, cleaning the school's bathrooms and emptying the trash after the co-eds.
Columbia's policy allows employees to take a certain number of courses per semester. By comparison, tuition costs $43,088 annually for full-time commuter students.
Aside from the cost break, the school does not give their employee-students any special treatment.
'They're in class with all of the other highly talented undergraduates,' college dean Peter Awn told ABC News.
Prestigious: Columbia University, one of the original Ivy league colleges, is ranked as the fourth best school in the country behind Harvard, Princeton and Yale.
For the 52-year-old Classics major, the struggle wasn't fitting in with his classmates, but one of the world's toughest languages.
'Latin is a little bit easier, at least for me.'
Dean Awn, who runs the School of General Studies, is impressed by Mr Filipaj's dedication, as it took him 19 years to complete it by enrolling in one or two classes per semester.
'You meet him and even when he's working, you get a big smile and you can just see this sense of pride in what he's doing here at Columbia,' Mr Awn told ABC.
'He's one of those people that believe that if you work hard at anything, be that his custodial responsibilities or his academic responsibilities, you can create that sense of accomplishment and value.'
Day and night: Mr Filipaj took classes during the day and worked as a janitor at the school in the afternoon and evening
One person who sadly will not be able to witness Mr Filipaj's walk at graduation is his father, who died just three weeks ago.
On top of that, Mr Filipaj said that his father 'thought that I'm not that smart', so the degree would have surely changed his mind.
Now, Mr Filipaj has the learning bug, and plans to pursue his master’s degree and potentially his PhD.
'I would say that I have fulfilled half of my dream—going to graduate school would complete it,' he told ABC.
'I'm sure I'm going to see him in a classroom, at some point, on the other side of the desk.'
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Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2142114/Janitor-Columbia-graduate-honors-degree-university-19-YEARS-taking-classes.html#ixzz1ulGLkBsk
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