Find a job.

Find an apartment.

Find a bit of happiness.

These are priorities likely to be found at the top of any recent college graduate's "to do" list.

Adam Shepard, who earned his undergraduate degree from Merrimack College in 2006, set such common goals for himself. His methods for achieving them, however, were far less usual.

"As Americans, we are very uncomfortable stepping out of our security zone," said Shepard, now 25.

"We all think, 'This is where I am and where I'm going to always be,' " he said, then put forth a challenge of sorts. "Going after your dreams isn't easy - but it's possible."

Two years ago at age 23, Shepard decided to put his own comfort level to the test.

With $25, the clothes on his back and a train ticket to nowhere in particular, the recent college grad adopted a new identity of down-and-out high school graduate. He would keep his real identity to himself and rely on no one but himself to get out of poverty.

Within 10 months of leaving his family home in Raleigh, N.C. - and against conventional wisdom - Shepard would work his way out of a homeless shelter and into an apartment in North Charleston, S.C. He also would secure steady employment and remarkably spin his $25 in cash into savings of $5,500.

"If you can budget yourself, if you can educate yourself, you can really do something with your life," Shepard said.

So goes the premise of Shepard's 2007 book, "Scratch Beginnings: Me, $25, and the Search for the American Dream." It's self-published but already gaining buzz and paving Shepard's way to speaking engagements and news coverage.

Shepard will speak at his North Andover alma mater Thursday, roughly one month before three scheduled interviews on "The Today Show," "Inside Edition" and Fox News.

His book, which will be sold at the Merrimack College event, is expected to hit local book stores in mid-February.

"There are always a handful of students who you know are going to really do something. He's one of them," Merrimack College professor James Grinnell said. "This was such a nontraditional thing to do right of out college. He went from an undergrad sitting in a classroom to booking 'The Today Show' 18 months later. I truly believe this will be a life-changing event in his life."

Though Shepard wasn't advertising his well-adjusted childhood or college experience during the experiment, he did benefit from them preparing him to be a highly functional adult, noted Lawrence psychologist Joseph Cotton.

"There's all sorts of factors you need to succeed: Social skills, social support, basic life skills, sense of self, sobriety, medical access, access to transportation, clothing to go on job interviews," said Susan McGibbon, director of Daybreak Shelter in Lawrence. "Many times when you come from a very poor, very violent background and see criminal behavior of all kinds, that maladaptive behavior becomes normal."

As it turned out, however, Shepard's experiment with working his way out of poverty did more than prepare him to write a book. It also prepared him for real-life circumstances when he was forced to return home 10 weeks early to care for his mother, who was battling a second bout of lymphoma and whose unemployment benefits had dried up.

"Perhaps the ultimate irony of my entire project," Shepard writes in his book, "my brother Erik and I had to come together to provide financial support for our mom. I was to head home to Raleigh, where Erik and I would split the costs on a three-bedroom apartment to look after my mom, to essentially do what I was doing in Charleston, except now it was for real, beyond the scope of my project."

Proving a theory

Shepard's experiment was inspired by his skepticism toward Barbara Ehrenreich's book "Nickel and Dimed," which he read the summer after his freshman year in college.

Testing the welfare-reform argument that any job could lead to a better life, Ehrenreich had set out to see whether she could survive on $7 an hour. She worked as a waitress, hotel maid, cleaning woman, nursing home aide and Wal-Mart sales clerk, while living as cheaply as possible in Florida, Maine and Minnesota.

In "Nickel and Dimed" she details her findings that one job wouldn't keep her afloat. And she concludes that America today is not structured to allow working-class people to climb out of their socioeconomic level.

Shepard's review? Good book, bad message.

He read the book five times and decided that in her travels, Ehrenreich adopted a victim mentality. And he developed an idea to prove her theory wrong.

That's how he found his way to North Charleston, S.C., on the night of July 24, 2006.

Both Shepard's parents were apprehensive about the project, particularly about their son's first night in a new city. Reading about it later didn't help soothe his father's nerves.

"I wasn't as nearly scared as once I read the account of that first night. That was scary stuff, scary stuff," George Shepard said. "I learned through that first night why my father had gone grey."

Fresh off the train, Shepard's first 48 cents went toward purchasing a bottle of malt liquor for a drunk banned from buying alcohol herself. Several others tried to panhandle him for a dollar or two, and one irate tough guy nearly clobbered Shepard for implying he was a beggar, too.

"I didn't really know the world I was in," Shepard said in a recent telephone interview. "Had I known that North Charleston ranked as the No. 7 most dangerous city in the country, I might have rethought getting off the train."

He checked into a local men's shelter, where he was warned not to use the blankets on the floor because they were infested with scabies. He also was advised to keep his valuables close and ignore any sexual advances.

The stench of the sleeping area was outdone only by the conditions of the bathroom, he said, with its missing toilet seats, mold-caked walls and used Band-aids littering the communal shower floor.

"All these dirty men didn't care at all. They were sharing soap and towels," Shepard said. "I splurged on a pair of $4 shower sandals and was in there with my conditioner. Yeah, yeah, high-maintenance."

Life in the shelter wasn't clean, but it was safe, he said.

"The case managers, nurses, doctors, psychologist who came regularly, and the overall staff at the shelter made it more positive tha n just 'come and stay the night,' " he said. "It was more than just food and a place to sleep."

He spent roughly 70 days at the shelter and was surprised to find he was largely among young men like himself.

"I met a lot of alcoholics, druggies, guys who were mentally ill," Shepard said. "But there's a whole other world of guys living in the shelter who are in their 20s and 30s, and just at a roadblock in life."

He worked as a day laborer for two weeks for $4.50 an hour after taxes, while feverishly applying for permanent jobs. Perhaps naively, he supplied the shelter's street address and phone number on applications - a location with which local business owners were familiar.

"I remember one night I was having dinner with this guy across the table who said, 'Us homeless guys, they don't care about us. No one is going to call this shelter to hire us,' " Shepard said.

That was when he realized his mistake.

"Living in a shelter was a turn-off for a lot of people," Shepard said. "So the next day, I went down to this moving company and talked my way into a job. They hired me on the spot."

On the job

Co-worker Derrick Hale of Goose Creek, S.C., remembers exactly what he thought of Shepard his first day on the job.

"That guy's not going to make it," Hale, 25, said. "But the way I work is if nobody gives you a chance, I'll give you a chance. I'll pull some of the weight for you as long as you give me all you got."

Before Shepard left, Hale said he was his No. 2 guy.

"Not that he knew everything to do, but he was willing to put in 110 percent," he said.

Moving furniture was physically grueling, but Shepard was earning more than minimum wage. He started at $9 an hour, which over time was bumped up to $11. And he saved up enough money to move out of the shelter, first into a friend's attic for rent of $800 for two months. Then he moved to an apartment with a roommate, paying $325 a month for the larger of the two bedrooms.

He bought food in bulk, sought out free entertainment and kept his vices to a minimum - mainly a weekly trip to an $8 barbecue buffet.

George Shepard wasn't surprised his son fared so well on a tight budget, as he's always been wise about money.

"When he was in the fifth grade, he decided he wanted to mow lawns," George Shepard said. " 'Well,' I said, 'you've got to buy a lawn mower to do that.' "

The father offered to pay for the mower, if his son agreed to mow the lawn to work off half the price.

"He followed that through, and when we moved back to Raleigh from Wisconsin, he continued mowing lawns for pocket money."

During his experiment, money wasn't the only problem. Shepard broke his toe, got terribly sick and his roommate beat him up to settle a foul-mouthed dispute.

But moments of despair were abated by e-mailing family and friends on computers at the local library. And after buying a used truck for $1,000, he was able to drive home for a two-day Christmas holiday.

He refused gifts but relished in the little pleasures: a clean house, home cooking and loving family.

'A necessary evil'

Over time back in North Charleston, Shepard did develop strong friendships with those around him, though they never learned who he really was.

"I was developing friendships, even though I was basically lying to people," Shepard said. "But it was a necessary evil, especially in the shelter. If people knew what I was doing, I would have gotten tossed out and roughed up."

His roommate, BG (an acronym for his childhood nickname Bubble Gum), was on a different path than Shepard - blowing $15 a day on beer, cigarettes and lottery tickets. But BG's cousin - Derrick Hale, his moving company co-worker - became a role model for Shepard.

Hale, a married father with a 3-year-old daughter, only made it to the 11th grade. Still, he had a strong work ethic, putting in 40 and 75 hours a week at the moving company for wages that grew from $8 to $13.50 an hour over five years. This, along with financial discipline at home, allowed Hale to support his wife while she recently obtained her masters' degree in social work and put $10,000 down on a $200,000 home.

"He is living the true American Dream," Shepard said of Hale. "He came from the world I was writing about. He was working hard and saving money - which was not what his peers were doing."

Hale thinks Shepard glorified his life a bit in the book.

"I'm proud, but I'm not satisfied," he said. "I want to start my own moving company. I know a couple of guys who can probably lend a hand."

These days, Shepard pays the bills as an airport skycap, but hopes to use his inspiring tale as a foray into a new career, potentially as a motivational speaker for high school students. His goal is to help others draw inspiration from folks like Hale.

"My story is not unique. I don't emerge as the hero of the book," Shepard said. "I draw inspiration from the people I met who are really living it. This is Derrick's story; this is the story of so many guys met along the way. To see and tell their story was inspiring. To show how the American Dream is alive was great."

If You Go

What: Adam Shepard speaking about his book "Scratch Beginnings: Me, $25, and The Search for the American Dream"

When: 7 p.m., Thursday

Where: Rogers Center for the Arts, 315 Turnpike St., North Andover

How: Free. Visit scratchbeginnings.com

The Rules

Here are the guidelines that Adam Shepard set for himself to research his book:

* Leave Raleigh, N.C., with nothing but the clothes he wore, $25, an 8-by-10-foot tarp, a sleeping bag and an empty gym bag.

* Debark train outside of North Carolina when the mood struck.

* Effectively wipe out previous life, including contacts, college degree and credit history.

* Adopt new identity: He became a high school graduate new to town with no connections.

* Within one year, attempt to become a everyday member of society.

* Earn money in any legal way, with the exception of begging.

* No sleeping illegally in public.

* Elements of success: Defining success would involve buying an operating automobile, residing in a furnished apartment, saving up $2,500, and improving circumstances by attending school or starting a business.

The Results

Here is how Shepard fared:

* Arrived in the city of North Charleston, S.C., at 11 p.m. on a Tuesday night.

* Lived in a homeless shelter for 70 days. Paid $800 to live in an empty attic for two months. Paid $325 of the $600 rent for a two-bedroom apartment for remaining months.

* Worked two weeks as a day laborer, before finding permanent work with a moving company. Maintained employment throughout experiment, initially earning $9 an hour and eventually earning $11.

* Bought used truck for $1,000.

* Saved $5,500.

* Returned home to care for his mother, who was diagnosed with cancer, roughly 10 months into the experiment.

Survival Tips

* Work, work, work. Shepard worked six days a week for the moving company and did odd jobs on the seventh day.

* Buy groceries in bulk and cook at home. "Rice-a-Roni is just absolutely delicious. For about a dollar, I could whip up two generous portions of 'The San Francisco Treat,' one for now, one for later," he wrote.

* Shop for clothes at the Goodwill store, where essentially everything costs $3. Hit Marshalls only for a special occasion. "I did go on a date with a girl, and I looked good in my $14.96 outfit," he said.

* Do what you can to reduce your house bills by closing doors and window and turning off lights.

* Skip expensive nights out and find free activities. "I was so excited about not spending money. I became obsessed with seeing what free entertainment I could find," he said.

* Keep vices under control. For Shepard, his vice was the greasy buffet at Mama D's Dirty South Barbecue, which he only ate on Sundays. "I did have an advantage that I'm not a heavy drinker. But for $8 a week, (Southern barbecue) is a vice you can afford," he said.