VIENNA, Austria – I’ve always been fascinated by stories of people overcoming tremendous odds en route to personal and professional success. I’ll never forget reading about Mary Frances Berry’s impoverished childhood in Nashville, Tenn. In a book of interviews titled And Still We Rise, Berry, an attorney, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and former chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, told author Barbara Reynolds:

“My mother made so little money around the time I was 4 years old that we stayed at an orphanage funded in part by a local charity. During that period we were hungry. We almost starved. My mother did not know. The guy who ran the orphanage would eat pork chops for dinner and then sell the kids the bones. I will never forget that.”

Robert L. Williams will never forget that at the age of 15, he scored 82 on an IQ test, just three points above the special education tract. He graduated from Philander Smith College in Little Rock, Ark. (cum laude), earned a masters degree in education at Wayne State University in Detroit and earned his Ph.D. in clinical psychology at Washington University in St. Louis. He was the founding director of the Black Studies Department at Washington University and is credited with coining the term Ebonics, which he calls the true language of African-Americans. He also developed the Black Intelligence Test of Cultural Homogeneity, better known as the BITCH test, to demonstrate how tests can be culturally biased.

Hilda L. Solis, a Latina, experienced ethnic and gender bias as a student. Speaking at the National Urban League’s centennial conference earlier this month in Washington, she recounted how one of her high school counselors told her that she was not college material and perhaps she should focus on becoming a secretary. She later became a secretary – Secretary of Labor in the Obama administration.

While traveling on public transportation in Vienna, I met a 27-year-old man who has an inspiring and didactic story about the need to follow one’s dreams. Like me, he was visiting Vienna.

Seun Alabi (pronounced a-labi), the youngest of three children, was born in Nigeria and moved with his parents to Dallas at the age of 14. But he never forgot the suffering he saw in his native land and thought that by becoming a physician, he could help alleviate some of the pain.

“When I was about 10 years old, that’s when I knew it was my calling,” he explained. “Coming from Nigeria, I was able to see a lot of things. My goal in life is to go back to Africa and make a difference. I saw people dying from simple things like malaria. If there was a capable doctor, it could be treated. I said, ‘I’m going to come back to Nigeria and I’m going to make a difference.’ Everything I did from that point on has been working toward my goal of becoming a doctor.”

After graduating from the University of North Texas in Dallas, Alabi applied to 10 U.S. medical schools. All 10 rejected his application.

Instead of abandoning his childhood dream, Alabi became more determined to fulfill it. Talking with friends in the Caribbean, he learned about www.valuemd.com, a website about international medical schools. Alabi learned that he could take all of his courses in English at the Medical University of Lodz in Poland. He applied, was accepted, and moved 5,000 miles away to a new country sight unseen

“I was going to a country I had never been to,” he said. “I didn’t have any family members there and I was going to be far away from them. But as a man, I have to do what I have to do. I had to pursue my dream.”

In pursuit of his dream, Alabi had to make some major adjustments.

“Poland is really different from the States,” he said, laughing. “It’s really, really different. In Dallas, it’s hot. It’s cold in Poland. Last year, it was minus-20.”

How does he deal with the frigid cold?

“I don’t think about it,” he says. “I focus on my books and why I am there. I have my heater on in my dorm, I have my blanket and I just sleep and study.”

On the rare occasions when he leaves campus, he realizes he is an object of curiosity.

“The unfortunate thing is that there’s still racism in Poland, like what are you doing in our country? The older people who don’t speak English are intimidated. It’s different with the young people, I guess because of MTV and BET. So, we interact better.”

Instead of thinking about the reactions of others, he focuses on himself.

“I just have to adapt,” he said. “Things are different here. Even at McDonald’s, the portions are so small. There is no supersizing of meals. But it’s an okay country. It’s very clean. Outside of school, I don’t do much.”

Inside of school, Alabi says he makes mostly A’s and ranks in the top 15 percent of his class. He is entering his fourth and final year of med school and hopes to do his residency requirements in the United States before returning to Nigeria.

“I am excited about my future,” Alabi said. “I feel that the sky is my starting point, not my limit.”

George E. Curry, former editor-in-chief of Emerge magazine and the NNPA News Service, is a keynote speaker, moderator, and media coach. He can be reached through his Web site, www.georgecurry.com You can also follow him at www.twitter.com/currygeorge.