Charbel Ayoub, a recent graduate of the Master of Science in Marketing program, left a country in the grip of financial and political ruin for a once-in-a-lifetime chance in America. Fear gripped Charbel Ayoub when a U.S. Customs officer pulled him aside to question him in Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport.

Ayoub, a 28-year-old Lebanese national, had just arrived to fulfill a hard-won dream to be a student in America and was on his way to Detroit, where his aunt and uncle were waiting for him.

“I was afraid; I didn’t want to go back home,” recalls Ayoub, who had an F-1 student visa and had enrolled at Walsh for the fall 2020 semester to earn his Master of Science in Marketing.

The customs officials took Ayoub to an interview room. As he sat there, Ayoub prayed.

“I said, ‘God, please continue my dream.’”

After verifying he was indeed enrolled at Walsh, the officer returned Ayoub’s passport to him, saying, “Welcome to America.”

Walking through the Chicago airport to catch his next flight, Ayoub thanked God as he reflected on the new life that was unfolding before him. “I could see my future in front of me,” he says, “all of the doors opening for me.”

Getting to that point, however, was a story of hope, hardship, and a life-changing miracle. Ayoub — the only son among four daughters — grew up in a close-knit family, but a trip to attend his cousin’s Detroit-area wedding in 2018 gave him a vision for something new.

“When I saw how people lived [in America], I thought, ‘Whoa,’” says Ayoub, who had earned a master’s in banking and finance from Antonine University in Lebanon and worked for a bank in his hometown of Cedar.

After the wedding, two events pushed Ayoub to pursue this dream more diligently: Lebanon’s 2019 financial crisis, which increased the annual inflation rate to 120 percent in 2021, and the 2020 Port of Beirut explosion, which killed more than 210 and is classified as the biggest explosion after Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

“I didn’t want to live in my country anymore; it wasn’t the country I was looking for,” he says.

In 2020, Ayoub applied for a student visa to study in America. Unfortunately, his timing was terrible: In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. Embassy in Beirut shut its doors for months.

But one day, out of the blue, he received an email from the embassy saying its doors would be open for just a few days to interview students who wished to study in America.

“I got lucky — it was a miracle,” he says.

Ayoub got his interview in July 2020. In early fall, he left for America with his visa, good for five years. His goal is to earn his doctorate in marketing eventually. While pursuing his studies at Walsh College, he interned as a corporate trainer for Eclipse Marketing and earned credit toward his program. In the meantime, he is soaking up the American lifestyle, traveling as often as he can, and envisioning a future in what he calls the land of opportunity and equality.

“It’s the land of George Washington and Martin Luther King Jr.,” he says. “It keeps me going. Just the feeling that I am in this country and learning the success story of Omar, the 23-yearold owner of Eclipse, motivates me. I always think my limit is the sky.”