Personal challenges set student on a humanitarian path

When life presents you with a challenge, what matters most is how you respond.

For some, it’s easier to just accept your fate and surrender to the adversity you’ve been dealt. But others, like CWU junior Adrian Rodriguez, refuse to roll over. They keep fighting until they find a solution.

“After the first COVID year, I was close to being homeless,” Rodriguez said, explaining that he couldn’t return to his parents’ home in Vancouver because his mom was immunocompromised. “I made my way back to Ellensburg and started working in construction. Fortunately, my boss at the time let me stay in his shop. It wasn’t heated and it didn’t have a bathroom, but it was a place to stay.”

With an uncertain future, Rodriguez was forced to temporarily pause his education so he could earn enough money to live. He landed an apartment at The Verge and found a job as an intake specialist with Prestige Post-Acute and Rehab Center in Ellensburg in 2021.

A year later, he earned a promotion to his current position as a manager of staffing, scheduling, and patient transportation.

But something was missing from Rodriguez’s life; he still wanted to pursue a degree. So, he told the company that he would like to enroll in business classes at Central while still working full time, and his supervisors were all in.

“My bosses have been great,” said Rodriguez, a first-generation college student who started out in the CWU sports medicine program in 2019. “They let me go in for a couple hours early in the morning, then go to class from 9 to 12, and then come back and work until 6. Then I go home and do homework and do it all over again the next day.”

His schedule can be grueling at times, but everything is coming together. He’s able to afford an apartment with his girlfriend, pay for utilities, food, and his CWU tuition.

“I’ve had to sell some things along the way, but I’ve been keeping up pretty well,” said Rodriguez, a business administration major with a specialization in supply chain management. “I recently sold my X-box to pay bills, but I don’t really have much time to play it anyway.”

Thanks to the on-the-job experience he has gained at Prestige, he is also pursuing a minor in human resources management. Rodriguez feels like he owes a debt of gratitude to his employer for helping him stay on his feet while continuing his education.

“Before I got this job, I thought I was going to call it quits,” he said. “I’ve had to grow up pretty quick over the past few years, but I finally feel like I’m on the right track.”

As much as Rodriguez has enjoyed working at Prestige over the past three years, he doesn’t plan to stay in the health care field. He envisions a future where he can help people in other ways.

“I’m hoping to join the Peace Corps after I graduate,” he said. “There are a lot of opportunities to help in Puerto Rico and Mexico — where my parents grew up — and I could see myself going to both places if I have the time and the means.”

Depending on how far his Peace Corps journey takes him, Rodriguez could see himself living in a foreign country, using his CWU education to make the world a better place.

“I just want to take all of the things I’ve learned at Central and apply them in different places around the world,” he said. “I’m really passionate about doing volunteer work, and I feel like I need to follow that path in some way.”

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This story appears in the latest edition of Voyage Magazine. The annual College of Business publication came out in April 2024.