CUNY Beyond graduates first class as Lehman student lands Wells Fargo finance role

Lehman College is one of several City University of New York schools that will bid farewell this spring to their first class of graduates since the launch of CUNY Beyond, a sweeping CUNY-wide initiative aimed at embedding career preparation and paid work experience into every undergraduate degree program.

Introduced last year, the five-year initiative was designed to address, as university leaders described at the 2025 State of the University address, a growing disconnect between higher education and career readiness nationwide. CUNY officials noted that while only about a quarter of students traditionally utilized campus career services, nearly all students attended class — prompting the university to begin embedding career development directly into coursework, advising and academic programs.

The program aims to triple the number of students participating in paid internships by 2030 and increase employer recruitment from CUNY campuses by 20 percent.

At the core of CUNY Beyond is an effort to strengthen employer partnerships and expand career-oriented learning opportunities within students’ degree paths.

For 23-year-old Jeffrey Gomez, opportunities for internships, networking and career preparation became just as defining a part of his college experience as the classes themselves.

At 10 years old he moved from the Dominican Republic to New York with his mother in 2014. He imagined they would live among the towering skyscrapers he had seen in movies and on television.

Instead, the two arrived in the Bronx, moving into a crowded apartment near Yankee Stadium already shared by 13 relatives. Gomez and his mother slept together on a couch, living alongside grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.

Coming to the Bronx fundamentally reshaped his ambitions, Gomez said. Living in overcrowded conditions and lacking even a bedroom of his own motivated him to pursue financial stability and independence.

“My goal was to make it out,” Gomez told The Press. “I pretty much knew that I did not want to live there for the rest of my life.”

By the time he enrolled at Lehman College in 2020, Gomez, his mother and his younger sister had moved into a one-bedroom apartment of their own, though space remained tight. His sister occupied the bedroom while Gomez slept in a partitioned section of the apartment.

His college experience began during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, with classes held virtually. While adjusting to college life, Gomez also completed his first internship through Project Destined, a real estate program that introduced him to commercial real estate and finance. The experience sparked a growing interest in business and wealth-building.

But financial pressures soon complicated his academic path.

After his first year, he stepped away from school for roughly a year to work full-time at a Chick-fil-A on Manhattan’s Upper East Side to help support his family and contribute toward rent and household expenses.

The experience, he said, became a turning point. Working in customer service and observing management helped him better understand business operations and convinced him he wanted more long-term opportunities than the job could provide.

“Anytime I go into a place, I always think, how can I be good at it? And then how can I grow from there?” Gomez said. “Once I got good at the job, then I realized that there was nowhere else for me to grow.”

By 2022, Gomez said he realized he wanted more long-term opportunities than restaurant work could provide.

Though he still needed the income to support himself and contribute toward his family’s rent, he returned to Lehman in 2022, determined to continue pursuing internships and a career in business and finance.  He moved through classes and work day in and day out, leaving early-morning shifts to head directly to class and working just under 40 hours each week.

“There is no balancing,” Gomez said. “It’s more like, what comes first?”

Through New York City’s Summer Youth Employment Program, Gomez secured another internship in real estate management, which eventually allowed him to leave his restaurant job behind. He later became a lab assistant at Lehman’s Bloomberg Terminal lab, where he has worked for more than three years while continuing internships and maintaining a full course load.

At Lehman, Gomez also became involved with the Financial Learning Group, eventually serving as president of the student finance organization. Through connections made there, he landed a competitive internship with Wells Fargo last summer in Charlotte, North Carolina.

The internship exposed him to corporate finance on a national scale and solidified his plans for the future. In August, Gomez will return to Charlotte full-time as part of Wells Fargo’s rotational analyst program.

Beyond the career milestone, Gomez said the moment carries deep meaning for his family, particularly his mother, who immigrated with him more than a decade ago searching for opportunity.

“My goal was always bigger than myself,” he said. “I knew that I had a bigger purpose in life for myself as well as for my family.”