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Where are you from or where do you consider home?

Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam (also known endearingly as Saigon)

Three words that encapsulate your Northeastern University experience:

Unexpected. Becoming. Alive.

What has your journey revealed to you about yourself?

Not as much as you might expect, and I mean that in the best way.

I already knew who I was when I got here. What Northeastern gave me was the platform, the resources, and the freedom to prove it. Coming from Vietnam, stepping into a brand new country, a brand new everything, this journey was not about finding myself. It was about showing myself what I was already capable of. And that felt even better.

What I did discover is that the possibilities are truly endless when you trust yourself enough to take the leap. I tried things I had never done before. I learned as I went. I said yes to things that scared me and figured it out along the way. And every single time, there was a community here ready to cheer me on, advocate for me, and help me get there. That support is not something anyone can take for granted.

Northeastern did not show me who I am. It gave me the stage to be unapologetically, fully, freely myself.

What motivated you to continue through challenging times in obtaining your degree?

If I’m being brutally honest, it would be the art of letting go. As an international student, there is so much outside of your control and I spent a lot of time and energy early on trying to fight that. What actually kept me going was learning to trust the process — giving my absolute best, staying devoted, and letting things fall into place. The hardship is temporary. What stays with you is the person you become while going through it.

And when things got heavy, I would think about all the moments that reminded me why I was here — being in the stands screaming when our women’s hockey team won the Beanpot, hunting for husky plushies on Giving Day, eating at the Dining Hall with undergraduates and thinking: I cannot believe this is my life right now. Those moments carried me through the hard ones.

Get back up. Let go. Trust that it will all make sense. Because it always does.

Experiential learning is a core component of a Northeastern education. Describe some of the highlights for you.

Okay, so where do I even begin.

I landed a co-op at HubSpot in a role that was literally built from scratch for me, got flown to San Francisco, and spent six months working with speakers from every corner of the world at one of the biggest marketing conferences on the planet.

I wrote a research paper on tech ethics with zero expectation of it going anywhere, and it ended up at RISE 2025, winning the Husky Highlight Award in the top 20 of almost 500 presenters. I earned a scholarship to volunteer out of state, packing syringes and thermometers and wheelchairs headed for countries torn apart by war. I mentored 30+ students through co-op searches and breakdowns and breakthroughs.

I did not plan any of those things. Every single one of them found me because I stayed open. Northeastern has a way of handing you moments like that. You just have to be ready to receive them.

Where do you imagine yourself five years from now?

In an event marketing or communications role at a company I believe in. Somewhere fast-moving and innovative, ideally in tech, which has been the world I have lived and breathed throughout my career. I want work that is meaningful and people who push me to grow.

But beyond the job title, I want to still be the person who shares the opportunity instead of hoarding it, who makes space for others the way Northeastern made space for me. Thriving, and bringing people along for the ride.

To anyone just starting out: stay curious, say yes to the scary things, and please do not make yourself small. You are here for a reason. Give it everything you have got and trust that it will be enough. It always is. We are living proof.

My Hoang Tran

Is there anything else you wanted to share?

Yes. CPS does not get enough flowers!

This college is full of some of the most resilient, fascinating, and quietly extraordinary people I have ever met in my life. People who came here with full lives and full responsibilities and still showed up every single time. People who are not just students: they are parents, veterans, athletes, immigrants, dreamers, rebuilders. Being in the same room as them made me a better person. That is not something you can put in a brochure.

So, to anyone just starting out: stay curious, say yes to the scary things, and please do not make yourself small. You are here for a reason. Give it everything you have got and trust that it will be enough. It always is. We are living proof.

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