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Janitor Who Earned Columbia BA Says Hardest Part Was "Ancient Greek"
By
Christopher Robbins
Published May 9, 2012
Modified May 9, 2012
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CBS
By
Christopher Robbins
Published May 9, 2012
Modified May 9, 2012
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Today CBS has more on Gac Filipaj, the janitor who earned his classics BA at Columbia University with honors over a 20-year-span. We realize it's the crack of 10:15 in the morning, but it's never too early to let a custodian's humble smile remind us what fat, lazy slobs we are. "The key is he was in class with every other undergraduate at Columbia and competing with them," Peter Awn, the Dean of the School of General Studies says, crushing any suspicions you may have had that Filipaj received special treatment and is therefore somehow your moral equal.
Asked what the most difficult part of his academic and professional journey has been, Filipaj declines to mention the pressure of financially supporting his family back home while he betters himself with highly refined, esoteric knowledge, or the bizarre duality of cleaning bathrooms and studying while his classmates were playing Halo and overdrafting into their parents' checking accounts. “The most difficult thing is ancient Greek—it’s just a killer! Latin is a little bit easier, at least for me."
As for his future plans, Filipaj says he probably won't bounce from one pointless internship to another, or take weeks of pricey LSAT classes, attend half of them, and decide he'd rather go into real estate. “I’d rather clean bathrooms 2 or 3 more years and get the master’s than get a lot of more money and get better job and stuff like that.”
Tagged
american dream
aww
columbia
death of cynicism
Gac Filipaj
Christopher Robbins
Christopher Robbins is a New York City reporter covering transportation, affordable housing, local politics, and criminal justice. His work has also appeared in New York Magazine, The Village Voice and The New York Times. Chris is a graduate of Patrick Henry High School in Roanoke, Virginia, and enjoys biking to Fort Tilden in the summertime.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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