If you ask Michael Angelo Batio about achieving success, he’ll tell you it boils down to one thing: choosing to finish. And he would know.

John Gomez does not settle and will not settle—even after he earns his bachelor’s degree from Northeastern Illinois University. “Ever since I was little, the one thing I have always wanted to do—which I know is kind of odd—is that I’ve always wanted to go to college,” said Gomez, who naturally is a member of the University Honors Program. “I really value education. I think it’s so important for people to be educated—not necessarily just to get a job but just to better yourself.”

If you ask Wanda Nguyen about her career plans, she does not hesitate with her answer: She will graduate from Northeastern Illinois University, attend dental school and eventually become an orthodontist, she says. And then she smiles. Nguyen hasn’t always been so quick to smile. As a child, she was teased and bullied by her classmates for having crooked teeth. She became shy and withdrawn. But after receiving orthodontic treatment at 21, Nguyen’s self-confidence skyrocketed.

Oscar Ramírez never had a Latino teacher growing up. Not in grade school, not in middle school and not in high school. Nunca. That all changed when Ramírez, the son of Guatemalan immigrants, enrolled at Northeastern Illinois University. “I suddenly had Latino teachers,” Ramírez said. “I would visit my professors during office hours and talk to them. They opened my mind and made me believe I can do anything.”

As Alaa Basatneh sat in the gallery for President Barack Obama’s final State of the Union Address—a mere 15 seats away from first lady Michelle Obama—she couldn’t stop thinking about the Supreme Court justices. “It felt surreal. The energy in that room,” Basatneh said. “All of the lawmakers, the officials, the cabinet, the justices. I kept looking at the justices and thinking, I want to see expressions on their faces. They’re supposed to be neutral.”

Mass shootings are contagious. That was the headline-grabbing conclusion of a research project that Maryam Khan began working on when she was a senior at Northeastern Illinois University. Almost as soon as the paper was published by PLoS ONE journal in July 2015, lead researcher Sherry Towers’ phone began to ring with calls from news outlets such as NBC, NPR and The Washington Post.

On a balmy August afternoon in Chicago, Raffe Paulis mingles among a crowd of professional volleyball players at North Avenue Beach. In about 20 minutes, Paulis and his playing partner will compete in their first match of the AVP Chicago Open.

Terrie Albano loves journalism and literature. She loves them so much, in fact, that she won four awards from the National Federation of Press Women for her writing and editing. But with the honors also came a problem: Albano, an Interdisciplinary Studies undergraduate student who is concentrating on English, couldn’t afford to go the annual conference in Anchorage, Alaska, to receive her awards and present her work.

In May of 2014, Claudia Hernandez earned her bachelor’s degree in social work from Northeastern Illinois University. It was the first major step in realizing her lifelong goal of becoming a social worker—a goal born from tragedy. When she was just seven years old, Claudia’s father passed away unexpectedly. “My father’s death made me a sensitive child,” Hernandez said. “I remember crying in bed every night and out of nowhere in my second-grade class. For that reason I was referred to the school social worker. Her help during that time motivated me to become a social worker.”

Tony Pozdol didn’t exactly launch his college career as standout scholar.