Frank Baez moved to the United States without speaking much English. When he immigrated into the country, he took a job as a housekeeper at New York University’s Langone Tisch Hospital to help ends meet. Now, he is a college graduate.
On Monday, May, 20, Baez graduated from the same university with his nursing degree.
Baez had previously graduated from Hunter College with a bachelor’s degree before he enrolled at NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing with a 3.6 GPA in just 15 months, according to ABC News.
“I could barely speak English at the time when I started working at NYU,” he told the outlet. “Now I reflect on it and I feel very proud of how much I accomplished.
“I was never an A student. I just studied a lot and worked a lot. Of course, there were times I doubted myself, but then I felt that I wanted to do something more for myself, that I deserved better, that I wanted to continue to move forward and grow and go on with my life. What I did was, I never gave up.”
While Baez, who moved to the United States from the Dominican Republic, has obtained his bachelor’s and nursing degrees, he is not done with his studies.
“Our program is extremely rigorous,” said Natalya Pasklinsky, director of simulation learning at the college of nursing. “Frank didn’t just kind of make the program, barely getting through. He flew through it with flying colors.”
His next plan is to pursue a master’s degree with the goal of becoming an acute care nurse practitioner.
You can learn more about Baez’s remarkable and inspiring journey below.
Congratulations to Mr. Baez on the incredible achievement and best of luck to him in the next chapter of his career.
And like he says, never give up on your dream.