Nights spent in hiding are now part of his past

RUE student left Baghdad vowing to get an education

He locked the door every night to avoid being discovered sleeping in the crowded storage room where he worked.

For nearly a year, Darren Jorgensen, now a Brown student, lived illegally in the Baghdad offices of the United Nations Special Commission, where he worked as an administrative assistant. He had abandoned a hotel room and the emotional ordeal of the twice-daily trips past throngs of destitute children living on the streets and begging for food.

"After six months I really wanted to leave," Jorgensen said of Iraq, where economic sanctions imposed after the Gulf War in 1991 have left many without food, medicine and basic goods. "I was so horrified by the dead-end of life I saw there that when I got back I had to make something out of my life."

He saw education as the way to do that. Jorgensen barely finished high school and was in his late 20s, but he took steps that led to his enrollment in the Resumed Undergraduate Education (RUE) program at Brown this past fall.

College Hill is a long way from the gaunt children of Baghdad, but it is an even longer way for a boy who grew up on welfare. As a child, Jorgensen attended eight different schools and had been advised to learn a trade at a technical college after high school. Instead, he drifted from job to job until a friend told him about an opening for a messenger at the U.N. in September 1994.

By the time Jorgensen (left) had been hired by the U.N., he had moved from his native Canada to New York City, from one low-paying job at a convenience store to another stocking shelves in a bakery. And the position seemed promising - early on, he moved into a better post in the publications division. But shortly after, lack of funding threatened to eliminate that position. The only available opening was in Iraq and Jorgensen took it. "I had a real job and thought I'd better hold on to it or else I'd end up slinging Snapple again."

When Jorgensen first walked off the plane in the Middle East, the heat slammed against him like a brick. Wreckage of buildings and planes left by the Gulf War littered the dry and dusty area.

Jorgensen was assigned to the Baghdad Monitoring and Verification Centre (BMVC), where he responded to the needs of teams of weapons inspectors, coordinating their cars and drivers.

He was also required to live in an Iraqi-sanctioned hotel. Driving through the city at night to get to the hotel was treacherous, he said. Darkness cloaked vast swatches of the city in an effort to conserve energy, which was in short supply. Sometimes Jorgensen knew other cars were on the street only when they cast sparks as the decrepit vehicles scraped against the ground. Drivers rarely used their headlights because replacement bulbs were unavailable.

Whenever his car came to a stop, children would immediately surround it to beg. The same children would always be on the same streets, Jorgensen said.

"I know what it's like to feel in a dead end, and it would break my heart to feel like these kids feel their life is a dead end," said Jorgensen. "The sun beats down mercilessly and the kids would be on the asphalt street with no shoes on ... kids who should be in school."

He began living in the BMVC, sleeping in the storage room, showering in the gym, storing food in the office refrigerator, and looking for a transfer back to the United States. All the while, he was cautious that no one discover his routine because he would have been fired, said Jorgensen.

"I sat in my office alone every night," said Jorgensen. "It occurred to me then that when I got back to America I was going to work very hard to get an education."

At the end of a year, Jorgensen received his transfer home and enrolled at Hunter College in New York City. His first semester with perfect grades set him on his way to his ultimate goal, a college degree from an Ivy League school.

The RUE program draws students like Jorgensen, 31, who already have had myriad life experiences, according to Lydia English, program coordinator and associate dean of the College. These are "people who have done amazing things and solved complex life issues and problems."

Among RUE students "a common theme is fulfillment of a dream, and getting an opportunity to do it when you really appreciate it for what it is worth," said English. "The pursuit of a degree is not simply utilitarian. It is a personal mission with as many reasons as there are individuals."

Jorgensen is one of about 60 students in the RUE program now. "I can describe Darren in two words," said Jonathan Sklar, president of the RUE student association: "Passionate and active." Jorgensen is trying to absorb the complete undergraduate experience by living in a dorm and eating on the meal plan. He has not yet chosen a concentration but plans to go to law school.

"I am so happy at Brown you have no idea," Jorgensen says of his return to education. "A kid who barely got through high school and worked at a convenience store ... it's another world. Brown didn't seem real at first just like Baghdad didn't seem real at first, just like New York didn't seem real at first.

"But that's going away the longer I'm here."