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Custodian cleaning college earns degree after 10 years

WORCESTER, Mass. — Nearly a decade ago, a man took a humble job as a custodian at a college when his small business went under during the recession. Now, nearly a decade later, he’s graduating from the school with a degree in mechanical engineering.

"You go through life and you say, 'Someday I'm going do this. I'm going do that,' and very often in life you're hit with a curve ball that kind of throws you off track," Michael Vaudreuil told WBZ.

Vaudreuil owned a plastering business that went bankrupt in 2007, during the recession.

“I was just a shell of a person at that time,” said Vaudreuil.

The only job he could find was as a custodian at at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts. To keep from being bored, he started taking classes.

For eight years, he took classes during the day and cleaned all night, according to WBZ.

And all that hard work paid off. On Saturday, he graduated with a class of students less than half his age.

Now, he and his wife are hoping he will get a new job, and they will start a new life together.

“Very few times do you ever get to experience a real ‘someday,’” said Vaudreuil. “And so it feels like, 'Welcome to my someday.’”

Michael Vaudreuil hopes anyone who hits rock bottom hears his story.

Posted by WBZ | CBS Boston on Friday, May 13, 2016