🔗 Share this article

In the final years of the 1980s, I set out on a low-cost journey to Europe with a companion. Since my travel mate was exploring enrolling in graduate studies in New York, we had booked a fortnight visit there en route to London.

We got to the graduate housing, a sizeable multi-story edifice on the Manhattan's Upper West Side known as International House. After dropping our bags, we headed straight to the cafeteria, where we picked up meals, sat down, and engaged in conversation with fellow residents.

Beside me was an Iraqi man enrolled in an engineering program at a prestigious New York university. He asked me what I did for a living, and I told him that I had just graduated with a science degree and had been conducting research using an electron microscope.

He mentioned that there was an research lab at Columbia University – close to the engineering faculty, which was how he knew about it. He recommended that I ought to seek a role with them. I dismissed the idea, explaining that I was heading off to Europe and, more critically, I didn’t have a US visa.

The next day I toured the city, coming back to the dining hall that night. The engineering student walked over to me and let me know that he had arranged an interview for me with the director of the microscopy lab at Columbia. Because he had gone to the trouble, I attended the interview – but immediately told my interviewer that I didn’t have a visa, so I was probably wasting her time.

As is common in NYC – a place where opportunities abound – she said: “We'll handle it. When can you start?” I missed my plane to London.

I was employed there for three years. A perk of the job was that I was granted free tuition at Columbia, and I seized the chance to finish a master’s of international affairs.

I never saw that student again and I am unaware of his name, but his remarkable generosity changed my life in multiple respects. I lacked the confidence or nerve to approach someone at an elite institution and request employment. Additionally, I had long dreamed to pursue education overseas, but wouldn't have been able to pay for it without that tuition waiver.

Perhaps most importantly, that role at the university led me to a job in Zurich where I encountered my beautiful French husband, with whom I currently share a family of four kids. This was a pivotal life event. That helpful person changed my trajectory in life, and I’m forever grateful.

Can you recall the Most Generous Act a Stranger Has Shown for You?

From making your day to transforming your future, we would love to know chance encounters that have left a lasting impression.

Feel free to recount your experience if you are an adult, anonymously if you choose. What you share are secure, and are solely for the aim of this article.