In the late 1980s, I was setting off on a backpacking trip to Europe with a friend. They were interested in doing a master’s degree in New York, so we’d booked a two-week stay in the Big Apple on the way to London.
We arrived at the postgrad residence, a big 10-storey building on the Upper West Side called International House which had been set up by Rockefeller to house postgraduate students. We dropped our bags and went straight to the canteen, where we grabbed food, took a seat and started talking to other diners.
Sitting next to me was an Iraqi man studying engineering at Columbia University. He asked me what I did, and I told him that I’d just graduated with a science degree and had been doing some research using an electron microscope at CSIRO.
He said there was an electron microscope unit at Columbia University – right next door to the engineering department, which was how he knew about it. He told me I should apply for a job with them. I laughed it off, telling him that I was about to fly to Europe and, much more critically, I didn’t have a US visa.
The next day I went out exploring, returning to the canteen that night. The Iraqi student walked up to me and told me he’d arranged an interview for me with the head of the electron microscope unit at Columbia. Because he’d gone to the trouble of setting it up, I went to the interview – but straight away told my interviewer that I didn’t have a visa, so I was probably wasting her time.
In typical New York fashion – a city where anything feels possible – she said: “We can make that happen. When can you start?” I never got on that flight to London.
I worked there for three years. A perk of the job was that I also received free tuition at Columbia, and I used the opportunity to complete a master’s of international affairs.
I never saw that student again and I don’t even know his name, but his incredible act of kindness changed my life in so many ways. I would never have had the courage or confidence to approach someone at an Ivy League university and ask for a job. And I had always wanted to study abroad, but could never have afforded it without that free tuition.
Perhaps most importantly, that gig at Columbia led me to a job in Zurich where I met my beautiful French husband, with whom I now have four amazing children. It was a total sliding doors moment. That kind stranger set me on a different course in life, and I’m forever grateful.
What is the nicest thing a stranger has ever done for you?
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