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The Hofstra Chronicle • October 4, 2016 • https://thehofstrachronicle.com/60137/features/the-humans-of-hofstra-october-4-2016/

The Humans of Hofstra – October 4, 2016

Daniel Nguyen

I’m from California. I just really wanted to get out of my hometown. I’ve been near Los Angeles my entire life and I wanted to go far. And I applied to actually 20 schools. Yeah, I applied to a lot of schools. I applied to 20 schools. I got into a lot of in-state schools, but I did not want to go in-state at all. I got into a few out-of-state schools, but out of the out-of-state schools I got into to, I really liked the location and Hofstra gave me a good scholarship which is what everyone says. I really liked the location. I wanted to go to New York, there’s a poster of Time Square in my room which is very blache. It just seemed like the right decision. I actually never went to orientation, I never visited. And so I just got here and I’ve been liking it a lot so far. Actually at the club fair I signed up for every club, but I haven’t been involved in that many actually. I’ve been involved in Hillel and I’ve just been trying to make friends and deal with switching across the country. All sorts of stuff. It’s been pretty cool so far. And I just feel like I wanted to get into a new environment from my home environment. I did not really fit in or really like most people from my home environment and I came here and I knew that I could meet a lot of new people and I could be someone that I wanted to be. And so far it’s been going pretty well I like to think. I don’t know, it’s just been a new opportunity and a new place and really far away. I’ve enjoyed it so far.
 

I’m a senior premedical studies major. I really just like to hang out with friends. I’m always so busy and I don’t have a lot of spare time and I find the most productive way is to just spend some time with other people. I really made a lot of greats friends here at school and I like hanging out with them. I’m the president of the Honors College Service Corp. We’re a community service club that goes to local soup kitchens, the Mary Brennan Inn, and a preschool called We Friends twice a semester, and we also have various other things. We have little charity drives throughout the school year, and we’re trying to start up a tutoring program. And I’ve been a part of it since I was a freshman but now I’m the president my senior year. It’s kind of been one of the most important things that I’ve been involved with here at Hofstra and I really like giving back to the community. I’m originally from Queens, so I’m pretty local. When I came to Hofstra I was originally going to commute but it was kind of too far without driving, and I don’t drive. I didn’t want to go very far from home. I originally came to Hofstra because it was not too far from home for me. I came here and I found that it was a good community. The classes here aren’t too big and we have the resources that a large school has but we have small classes and one on one interaction with professors. Especially being a science major I found it important to be able to talk to professors one on one and definitely research with them one on one. So the fact that that was expected of me to have connections with my professors has really helped me in my career here. I chose my major because I originally was a bio major. I wanted to be a doctor since I entered college. My plan was to go into medicine. I picked my major because it was kind of specialized towards getting into medical school. I kind of wanted to be a doctor since I was young, and as I’ve gotten older it’s gone from more of like not just being interested in science and being interested in medical science, but a desire to help people. Especially when you’re sick you’re kind of at your lowest point and helping someone through that, like that trial of getting over an illness is meaningful to me. So I plan on going to medical school. I’ve applied and I’m hoping to get in, working on it. As the president of the Service Corp I found that going to the Inn every week or every couple of weeks was really important to me because you feel like you’ve made an impact. And the work they do there is so important and so good. You’re not just helping someone temporarily. They may not necessarily be homeless, they may not have food security where they can’t get food, they may just be in a bad patch in their life, and the Inn takes people in without judgement and without questioning and helps people find ways to get back on their feet and get back to a better place. And I found just in little ways when I can go there, you don’t think of the little things that need to get done, like moving chairs and sweeping floors and wrapping up forks and knives into napkins, but these are all the things that make an inn run. So I found that it’s really meaningful for me to go and help them to help other people.

 

I come from right over here- Queens. I wanted to go away from home but not too far and I also wanted to be close to the city and Hofstra was the best fit for me. I’m from Queens in a little town called Woodside and that’s where I grew up. My dad owns a pet shop in Sunnyside, which is right next to Woodside and my mom cuts hair in Sunnyside also. I’m currently in FMA, that’s the main one right now. I might join stuff after. In a few weeks or so maybe. I want to get a good job after college, but while I’m in college I want to get a good GPA. I’ll make my resume strong and everything like that to get internships and jobs. I visited Hofstra too many times. I think I visited in total like eight times and each time was an information session, a campus tour, or something like that. So I visited Hofstra many times and that’s how I came to pick it. I’m only about half an hour drive on a good day. On a bad day traffic can take up over two hours. I live in the Netherlands in the Living Learn Community, the Zarb House which is in the Utrecht building in Netherlands South. I take 8 o’clock classes. I don’t recommend it. Stepbrothers, I love that movie it’s so funny. I love Will Ferrell, he’s amazing. My favorite color’s red. My favorite dog is a German Shephard or a husky. I have 28/15 vision. I have a tortoise at home. I have two cats. I had an internship over the summer at a real estate company. That was cool. I’m an Eagle Scout. I achieved that junior year of my high school career. I went to Christ the King High School in Middle Village, Queens.

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