Homelessness, other hardships propelled Nassau Community College valedictorian
First came the trauma — the violence in the family home, the foster care, the homelessness and hunger, the college failure and abusive relationships and sexual assault. Then came her second chance. And now, at age 38, Karol Rubiano is valedictorian at Nassau Community College.
In a season when commencement speakers praised college graduates for getting through the difficulties of the COVID-19 pandemic and urged them to sally forth in pursuit of their aspirations, Rubiano had to look no further than her own life for inspiration.
"It’s like a dream; it feels like I’m going to wake up tomorrow and keep living my life," said Rubiano of the valedictorian honor and the attention that followed. "I felt seen. Like my hard work was acknowledged."
Especially because of what came before.
In her videotaped address to her fellow graduates, Rubiano, who lives with her fiance in an apartment in Valley Stream, urged them to follow an adage she found on the internet that resonated with her: Wear your tragedies as armor, not shackles.
"It’s our stories — yes, even our sad stories that unite us," she said with a catch in her voice in the video, which was uploaded May 20 as part of the school's virtual commencement. "So let’s fight for our future, and as [writer] Maya Angelou once said, 'We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated.' Thank you and congratulations; we did it."
A winding path
In an interview, Rubiano recounted a winding path to her associate degree that began in Colombia, from where her family emigrated to Florida when she was 12. It was an abusive household, she said, and within a few years, her parents divorced. She moved with her mother to Queens, but the summer after she turned 16, she found herself homeless when she and her mother fled her mother's second abusive marriage for a domestic violence shelter.
Karol Rubiano. Credit: Newsday/Steve Pfost
After a year in foster care, she returned to Florida to be with her father. He paid for a small room for her and a sister in Fort Lauderdale while she finished high school in North Miami. Days were busy, attending school from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., before working at Burger King from 4 p.m. to 1 a.m. three or four days a week, she said.
She made it into college, but in her second semester at Florida International University in Miami, she dropped out, "depleted and defeated," she said, derailed by emotional pain and difficult circumstances. She had received financial aid and loans and worked in the college cafeteria to earn money for food. Often, however, it was not enough, and she dined on cafeteria leftovers, and sometimes, pocketed Saltine crackers for a ketchup sandwich back in her dorm room.
What followed, in Florida, then in New York City, were years of living on friends’ floors, work, and abusive relationships. The worst, however, was a sexual assault that left her devastated.
She is eloquent about the shades and shapes of trauma’s consequences, the shame and self-blame that can obscure any vision of a good life.
"You feel alone, isolated, ostracized, that you are judged, you don’t fit in with the rest of society," Rubiano said. "Like you are wearing a badge of shame, like you are not normal because you are not following the same timeline as everyone else, going to college, meeting someone, getting married and having kids."
"You internalize it, you feel like you are set aside, that you don’t deserve love, you don’t deserve good things," she said.
'I deserve to be happy'
It took a few years of stability after reconciling with her mother, finding steady work in sales at the New York Racing Association, meeting her fiance, and counseling to feel ready to give herself a second chance. "It was gradual," she said, adding she wished to be a model for her nieces and nephews by returning to school.
"And now I’m happy, I have somebody who loves and supports me, and I feel like I deserve to be happy," Rubiano said. "I think getting an education has been a big part of that."
Noting that she and her sister are the first in her family to get a college education, she said having an education "is something I find so empowering personally, and having the access to an affordable education at Nassau Community has been amazing."
Rubiano was selected as valedictorian after submitting an essay on why she should be chosen, along with letters of recommendation and completing an interview. Students with a minimum grade-point average of 3.96 can apply, and "each year they are all amazing," said Deborah Kilmnick, a Nassau Community College associate professor on the committee that selected Rubiano — who had a 4.0 GPA — and coached her in preparing her valedictory speech.
"But she just had such a compelling story; her compassion and authenticity" were "her standout features along with her academics and extracurriculars," Kilmnick said.
Now Rubiano looks forward to a life where she can connect to others in distress as a helper, as well as a survivor. She wants to be a social worker and has been admitted to Colorado State University to go on for her bachelor's degree. She is still awaiting word on her applications to area four-year colleges.
"Bringing awareness to these things and not being ashamed about these things and using them to propel change and [help] protect women, and men too, who go through these things, I would like to do that," she said.
Helping others as a volunteer "has been so healing for me, it’s empowering for me," she said. "I’m a shy and reserved and introverted person, but if I can help one person, then that will make me so happy. My heart goes out to those people who are still struggling with those demons."
Carol Polsky writes news and features on wide-ranging topics, from superstorm Sandy, 9/11 and presidential elections to health care and the economy.
