NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — Miguel Chavez is an undocumented immigrant who came to the U.S. from Peru in 2002.
One word to describe him? Smart.
After graduating from CUNY in 2020, he took a gap year for research and is headed to medical school in the fall to pursue an MD/PHD.
But before that, and before he was eligible for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program, which would make sure he could stay in the US, he was just worried about getting to college.
“It was almost 11th grade, or 10th grade, and I was basically going to school without even knowing if I was going to go to college or not. I had no status at that point,” says Chavez.
He says the pandemic taught him how sensitive people like him are.
“How sensitive we are to any changes. We couldn’t get unemployment. We couldn’t get any sort of benefits. It just made me feel even more for those friends that I have who do work on top of going to school. I didn’t have to work while going to school. They have to work, but just how much pressure there was on them and to keep those things in mind. Sometimes it’s not really black and white, there’s a lot of layers to things.”
Mathiu Perez is also a CUNY grad, he’s also smart, also is headed to med school in the fall, and is also an immigrant. He’s from Ecuador, and says the pandemic taught him the value of human interaction.
“Just being around people, having people talking to you and just feeling that you can interact with other individuals…it lacks a lot now, and I feel like I definitely need that,” says Perez.
While those two get ready for the next step in their education, the man who runs the City University of New York, Chancellor Felix Matos-Rodriguez, is also getting ready for the next step: coming back from a pandemic.
“I think that you need to approach things with a great degree of humility and flexibility. We all keep learning as the science and the public health conditions keep changing, and you need to adapt,” he says.
Any CUNY student who wants to learn in-person next year will have to be vaccinated.
Matos-Rodriguez says the name of the game is finding flexibility and adaptability when it comes to changing public health guidance.
“We need to have a robust set of course offerings…so we can meet the students where the demand is.”
Matos-Rodriguez also sees a positive impact of the pandemic when it comes to making it easier for students looking to transfer college credits to a new school.