Posted on 05/14/2012 3:20:56 AM PDT by bjorn14
NEW YORK— For years, Gac Filipaj mopped floors, cleaned toilets and took out the trash at Columbia University.
A refugee from war-torn Yugoslavia, he eked out a living at the Ivy League school. But Sunday was payback time: The 52-year-old janitor donned a cap and gown to graduate with a bachelor's degree in classics.
As a Columbia employee, his classes were free. His favorite subject was the Roman philosopher and statesman Seneca, he said during a break from his work at Lerner Hall, the student union building he cleans.
"I love Seneca's letters because they're written in the spirit in which I was educated in my family: not to look for fame and fortune, but to have a simple, honest, honorable life," he said.
His graduation with honors capped a dozen years of study, including readings in ancient Latin and Greek.
"This is a man with great pride, whether he's doing custodial work or academics," said Peter Awn, dean of Columbia's School of General Studies and professor of Islamic studies. "He is immensely humble and grateful, but he's one individual who makes his own future."
Filipaj, now an American citizen, was accepted at Columbia after learning English. His mother tongue is Albanian.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Where will it take her? To medical school in the fall. Don't count out where a solid education can take anyone.
“Indeed: A Bachelors Degree in the Classics should get him out of the toilets.”
Well, at least he can move up to Starbucks making coffee with the rest of his classmates.
“Dude.. he was a janitor.”
So, you judge people by their vocation, books by their cover, too, I presume.
Will your son pick an ancient language to specilize in? My daughter chose ancient Greek - and loved it!
Good luck to him
“Ivy League Classics degree being denigrated on FR.”
When was such a degree held in high esteem in the first place?
First off, you seem taken in by the liberal notion that an Ivy college is a better education and it isn’t.
Second, studying other people’s writings is not much of an education. Show me someone that has worthy ideas of their own and maybe we can say that person has an education.
He's stronger in Latin right now than in Greek, but it will depend to a great degree on who and what he finds when he gets to school, which professors and which research projects catch his attention. I think maybe his preference will be to become a Hellenist rather than a Latinist, but who knows?
Thanks.
sitetest
IMO the only reason to go to college is to set yourself up for a career in your chosen field.
I know many women go to find a rich husband, but mainly it should be to educate yourself to make money.
Any course that doesn’t do that is BS.
But that’s just my opinion.
Some go for the party.
Yeah, you’re right.
sitetest: kudos to your son for choosing to go to college for an education, not a career farm.
SBM: well, you know.:)
I have a degree in Classical Studies, Latin concentration. My master’s degree is in Latin. (I got a LOT of weird looks in college, and still get them now actually)
I teach Latin and English lit in high school and I love it. My students love the feeling of superiority they have challenging modern language students in a reading contest.:)
I could have been an engineer or about anything else for that matter, but there is something about reading Latin that is just fun. Of course, I feel the same way about sitting in a deer stand, but still.:)
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