Ardian Margegaj

At 28, Ardian Margegaj is older than many of his fellow soon-to-be graduates at Western Connecticut State University. And, if you ask him, Margegaj will acknowledge, “My life has been nothing short of a struggle.” But his story is one of persistence and resilience, and one he willingly shares with other students to demonstrate that anything can be overcome with determination.

Margegaj’s family is Albanian, from present-day Kosovo. They emigrated to the U.S. just before the Yugoslavian war broke out and settled in the Bronx, New York, until they relocated to Brewster. Margegaj graduated from Brewster High School in 2014. A good student, he was accepted to several SUNY schools, but because of cost, he had to attend community college. “I was majoring in electrical engineering at the time,” he said. “After a couple years of part-time classes, my mother got injured at work and had to get spinal surgery and during the same time my father got diagnosed with kidney cancer. So, they both had to undergo surgery within a week of each other. Needless to say, I had to drop out of school and help take care of them as they were bedridden.”

Margegaj worked full time to help support his family. Years after they had recovered, he said, “I was still working at restaurants, going through life, then the pandemic happened and I started to realize that I couldn’t do this forever and needed to change something. I started looking at different universities near me, but just couldn’t pull the trigger in applying. It was during this transitional period, I met my now fiancée, who helped motivate me to do better and strive for a better life. She was an inspiration to want to build a life for the family I wanted to build with her,” he said.

“I decided to attend WCSU because I knew I wanted to pursue Finance and I saw in my research that WCSU was an AACSB-accredited university,” Margegaj said. “This meant that the education given here was recognized internationally and was of good quality.”

Margegaj reflected on an early meeting with his academic adviser. “She said to me, and I’ll never forget this, ‘the point of college is not to graduate as soon as possible. It’s to leave college with a job offer in-hand.’ This kind of rattled me a bit. Because coming back to school after so long and as a transfer student as well, I was only concerned with just getting it over with. But having someone bring me back down to earth with this comment really helped me. It lit a fire under me and made me think ‘I have to use this time to my advantage and get as much internship experience as possible and get my job offer in my senior year.’”

Margegaj took the advice seriously. “Having on-campus employment opportunities was a big help to me in developing my resume,” he said. “I was able to work as a peer tutor for a semester and build my leadership and communication skills. Using some of the resources in the Career Success Center helped me a lot as well. I was able to practice my interviewing skills using the service Big Interview that WestConn has access to. This really helped me get my nerves under control going into my first ‘real’ interview.”

Three years and three internships later, Margegaj will graduate in May 2024 with a B.B.A. in Finance with a minor in Accounting, and an internship lined up with CVS Health this summer. He will return to WCSU in the fall to take more classes so that he can amass 150 credit hours in order to pursue a CPA designation.

“I hope to work in corporate finance in the future,” he said. “Yes, there have been little struggles littered through the years, but in the end it really is just a matter of pushing through and believing you’re going to come out of this experience a better person. Also reminding yourself of your goal, the ‘why’ you are here. And, ultimately just remembering, ‘Sometimes the only way out, is through.’”

His advice to other students, whether they are first-generation, nontraditional or transfers: “Nothing is going to be handed to you. Be proactive in building relationships with professors. They want to see you succeed just as much as you want to.”

Western Connecticut State University changes lives by providing all students with a high-quality education that fosters their growth as individuals, scholars, professionals and leaders in a global society. Our vision: To be widely recognized as a premier public university with outstanding teachers and scholars who prepare students to contribute to the world in a meaningful way.