Immigrant's Success Story Inspires In N.J.

Essex County, NJ – When a 5-year-old Marino Duran immigrated to the United States with his family from the Dominican Republic, he didn’t speak a word of English. But following an inspiring, Horatio Alger-style childhood, Duran has earned himself a top job as an engineer for General Motors.

Here’s how it was done, according to school administrators at his alma mater, the New Jersey Institute of Technology.

Duran’s path to success wasn’t easy; when he first applied to NJIT, he was rejected. But armed with the advice and support of a high school mentor, Duran persevered and enrolled in Brookdale Community College, where he majored in electrical engineering.

While living in Middletown, Duran took up a spirit-crushing daily grind, including a four-hour, round-trip bus commute to campus. Without the benefit of parents who could support him financially, Duran worked full-time to pay his tuition while also attending night classes, burning the candle on both ends in his attempt to make the American Dream work.

After three years, Duran graduated with honors from Brookdale with an associate degree in electrical engineering and applied again to NJIT, where he was accepted.

But after all his hard work, Duran ran into an unexpected speed bump — because of his immigration status, he didn’t quality for in-state tuition.

“The day I found out about this, I literally sat on the stairs in front of the library and cried,” Duran recalled during an interview with a campus publication.

Still, this financial setback didn’t crush Duran’s spirit. He took a year off from his studies, intent on saving enough money to continue his schooling.

It was then that the hard-working immigrant finally caught a break.

“Fortunately, the following year President Barack Obama’s deferred action executive order allowed undocumented immigrants to pay in-state tuition so long as they graduated high school in the same state as their college,” school administrators wrote.

With the help of Obama’s executive order, Duran began his NJIT career with the gusto and gumption that has defined his entire scholastic life. To make ends meet, he continued to work 50 hours a week, mainly as a manager at Ariana’s Grand, a banquet hall in Woodbridge.

One semester, Duran worked three jobs to cover tuition and the rent for his apartment, school administrators said.

“There were days where I literally slept on the couch at work because I missed the last train and would have to wait until 5 a.m. and walk 30 minutes to the train station so I could get home and rest,” Duran remembered. “Sometimes while waiting at the train station, I’d nap on the bench.”

But despite the punishing grind, Duran continued to excel in his major — computer engineering — worked as a teacher’s assistant, joined the the NJIT Student Senate and served as event coordinator for the university’s Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE).

“A lot of hard work and planning went into it all,” Duran said. “I admit there were times I wanted to give up. But then I remembered that no one in my family had ever gone to college. I was the first, and now I had a chance to become something I always wanted to be… an engineer.”

Duran’s big break came during his senior year at NJIT, when he attended SHPE’s national conference in Baltimore, which included a career fair attended by managers from General Motors who granted him a job interview.

“I hit that interview out of the park,” Duran enthused.

Ultimately, Duran ended up accepting an offer to work as an embedded systems integration controls engineer responsible for examining the electrical design systems embedded in all GM automobiles and ensuring that they meet specifications.

“It wasn't easy, and many things went wrong along the way,” Duran explained. “But I stayed focused and persevered because my ‘why’ was stronger than that [initial] ‘no.’ It was stronger than the four-hour commute, stronger than the restless nights napping on the bench, stronger than [holding] three jobs and stronger than those countless nights of studying.”

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Photo/Video: NJIT