#violetspotlight

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Violet Spotlight: Karan Ganta ‘20

“I get to meet all these interesting people, and I have friends that I feel closer to than a lot of other people in my life, even though I’ve only known them for a year,” says Karan Ganta (Tandon ’20) about his favorite part of studying at NYU. Those friendships are part of what have helped him adjust to life in New York, where, so far, anyway, he plans to stay after graduation. As a freshman, Karan lived in Othmer Hall, in Brooklyn, where the dining hall is so close that the Alpharetta, Georgia, native would walk there wearing flip flops in the snow. Now, making the trek from Carlyle Court to Palladium through always-bustling Union Square, he’s more likely to cover up. “There’s so many people, it’s like, okay, I can’t go out in shorts and a t-shirt,” he jokes. “People are going to look at me like, what are you doing?” While dressing for winter didn’t come naturally, over the course of his time at NYU, Karan has discovered that he’s passionate about problem solving, whether in the realm of his computer science major, or in his student government work. As the treasurer for the Tandon Undergraduate Student Council, as well as the vice president of events for the Inter-Residence Hall Council, he has enjoyed channeling his critical thinking toward the improvement of students’ lives. Karan is hasn’t yet decided on exactly what he wants to do after graduation (it’ll probably relate to his computer science studies), but he knows that he wants to continue developing relationships, listening to others, and finding ways to address their concerns. He calls it stereotypical, but he’s eager to make society work better. “Everyone always has a story,” he says, “and it’s always interesting.”

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Violet Spotlight: As a varsity athlete on NYU’s swimming and diving team, Albert Lee (Liberal Studies ’20) has received a crash course in the importance of time management skills. With practices six afternoons per week during the swim season (from September to early March)—plus additional morning practices on Tuesdays and Thursdays—his day often begins before 6 a.m. “Luckily, I’ve met great friends and mentors here who’ve helped me learn when to study and when to relax,” Albert says. “Sometimes it’s a matter of taking a step back and figuring out how to finish one thing at a time.” In addition to his swimming—a passion since he was 8 years old—and schoolwork, the Honolulu native balances responsibilities as president of NYU’s Hawaii Club and as a marketing ambassador for Agnes, an app that helps students find out about events and connect with organizations on campus. To unwind, he jogs or chats with friends in Central Park—a small dose of nature to remind him of the hiking trails and beaches of his home state. “I had always stayed on the island, so for my college experience I wanted to branch out,” Albert reflects. “NYU is such a global campus, and it’s been great to meet and relate to people who are from even farther away than I am.” Albert is contemplating a major in economics, with an eye toward a possible career in the food industry. “My dad owns a shaved ice store in Hawaii,” he explains, “and people are always asking me if I’m going to follow in his footsteps.” But it was a liberal studies writing course—for which he wrote 25-page paper about local pizza joints—that got him thinking seriously about the restaurant business. “I started thinking about what my future would be and what my passions are,’ he says. Between summers working in his dad’s shop, he also took a marketing internship at a healthy ice cream store in the Bronx. “It was really fun to work on marketing behind the scenes and also to serve customers,” he says. “I love meeting new people and sharing my experience. I definitely want to pursue an entrepreneurial path and that’s something NYU is helping me to achieve.”

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Violet Spotlight: Nana Apraku

“I’m very results-oriented and focused,” says Nana Apraku, a junior at Stern studying international business and management with a minor in social entrepreneurship.And if you’d asked her about her about her dream career a year ago, she would’ve had a ready answer: a goal to build a business in Ghana, where her family is from, in an effort to grow local economies and help wealth generated in Africa stay there. But now there are days when she finds herself looking at law school applications, or wondering whether she should run for office some day. Why the sudden interest in politics? It started when Nana earned a scholarship that allowed her to study away at NYU Florence, where she got a job helping out with events for the La Pietra Dialogues. “Race was something I’d been battling, because I grew up in the Bronx, and was used to predominantly spaces of color. Manhattan is very different demographically, and sometimes I’m the only female of color in the room. I didn’t know how to have productive conversations about it—sometimes I wondered if I should even be bringing it up,” Nana reflects. “But La Pietra Dialogues encourages those types of conversations, and hearing about the different ways civilizations come together to formulate race really opened my eyes. I wanted to have a voice.” Nana was so inspired that she and another student ended up organizing their own conference, called Black Femininity. Back in New York, she’s active within Stern’s Supporting Excellence and Advocating Diversity club, and also sits on the student committee for the 1831 Fund (from which she received a scholarship when she was a sophomore). To unwind, she plays volleyball and watches Korean dramas. As for the next steps? “I’m not sure I’ve decided yet,” Nana says. “But I’m expanding my mind, and I know that I want to be a person who positively impacts the world.” Know someone you’d like to see featured here? Send suggestions to [email protected]

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Violet Spotlight: Silvana Bravo

At NYU, pretty much everyone you meet is excited to be here,” says Silvana Bravo, a sophomore in the Rory Meyers College of Nursing. “That’s encouraging, and it also fosters a little bit of competition, which I think helps you grow.”

For Silvana, who took three science courses as a high school senior in Atlanta, nursing was the perfect field to blend her academic interests with her passion for community service. She hopes to practice in a hospital before going back to school for a graduate degree in pediatrics—and then on to a career in public policy for health care, perhaps. For now, she’s throwing herself into a favorite course, Microbiology for Nursing, which she loves because of the way professor Robert Boylan uses examples from history to show how researchers used the scientific method to make advances in public health.

On weekends in the city, Silvana likes hitting the museums (the Met is a favorite for people watching) or stopping for ramen or bubble tea on St. Marks Pl. For a special treat, there’s Lanewyorkina on Sullivan St., which the Mexico City-born connoisseur says serves the best Mexican-style ice cream she’s ever tasted in the U.S.

“I thought that coming here would mean going to school with a lot of people who weren’t like me,” Silvana reflects. “But it’s actually really comforting to get lunch with a classmate you don’t really know. You always find something to talk about, and it helps you relieve stress because you don’t feel like you’re all alone in the city. You see that other people are going through the same things that you are.” Know someone you’d like to see featured here? Send suggestions to [email protected]

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Violet Spotlight: Sophia Wu

It was after a semester of organic chemistry—a famously taxing course—that psychology major Sophia Wu began to think about opening up a frank conversation about mental health on campus. “I saw my classmates break down before or after exams,” she reflects. “People weren’t handling things correctly. It was fake it till you make it.”

Then a sophomore, Sophia teamed up with two classmates to co-found Project InterACT, a Facebook page featuring interviews with students about mental wellbeing. “It’s been really inspiring and mutually therapeutic to hear people open up to a stranger,” she says of the conversations. “Every single person has so much to say.” Now a senior preparing for medical school, Sophia hopes to become a child psychologist or pediatrician—a career goal sparked by courses in her Child and Adolescent Mental Health Studies minor. “I’ve been so inspired by my professors in CAMS,” she says, “many of whom are practicing doctors at Langone’s Child Study Center. I really appreciate their clinical experience.”

A native of Delran, New Jersey, Sophia has taken to city life, making a ritual of weekend brunch with friends (Westville is a go-to spot) and squeezing in a Broadway show whenever she can. “When I go back to the suburbs, I’m always craving more,” she says. As for maintaining her own mental and physical health, there’s singing—either private lessons or membership in the NYU Women’s Choir—and a regular running routine.

“That’s my wind-down time,” she says. “It’s very valuable for wellness to find something healthy you can involve yourself in completely and forget everything else.” Know someone you’d like to see featured here? Send suggestions to [email protected]

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Violet Spotlight: Adrian Chochorek 

The other day Adrian Chochorek had an experience that made him remember why he chose to go to school in New York City: Standing in line at Starbucks, he spotted a woman reading book four of "In Search of Lost Time," the very same volume he was then tackling for his freshman seminar. He pulled out his own matching copy and the two struck up a conversation. “It was awesome to meet this random person who wanted to talk about Proust,” Adrian marvels. “You wouldn't really get that back in my hometown.” With 300-400 pages to burn through per week for that course—on top of all his other classes and a job working in Bobst’s Avery Fisher Center—the freshman, who plans to major in politics and history, has kept busy his first semester. But he doesn’t mind being challenged: “I love that even in my freshman year, I get to take a politics course with someone who’s associated with The Washington Post,” says Adrian, who’s also become active with the politics club. “It’s a big change from high school teachers.” On weekends, between brisk fall walks to explore the sights and sounds of the neighborhood, Adrian unwinds with the occasional Google Hangout to check in with old friends from back home. Well on his way to becoming a true New Yorker, the Copiague, Long Island, native already has already identified his go-to 99-cent pizza spot and perfected the art of people-watching, embracing the way the Washington Square campus blends into the city itself. “I love hearing languages that I haven’t heard before,” he says. “Sometimes I just sit in the park and read, or listen to a podcast, and I see people walking by and just try to imagine what their lives are like.”

Know someone you’d like to see featured here? Send suggestions to [email protected]

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Violet Spotlight: Esmeralda Amador

"It's crazy how one class can really change a person," says Esmeralda Amador (Dentistry, '20). For her, that course was Sociology of the Family, which she took through NYU's Precollege program as a high school junior at the Bronx's St. Raymond Academy for Girls.

"I still remember the moment," Esmeralda says. "I was reading a book about an inner city immigrant family's interaction with a physician, and I thought, 'Someone wrote a book about me!'” Born in the Dominican Republic, she had moved with her family to Manhattan’s Morningside Heights as a sophomore. “The story was so relevant to the dynamic of my family visiting anyone of power—a lawyer, a doctor, a dentist—that is was almost uncanny,” she remembers.

Almost instantly, Esmeralda saw herself, her urban environment, and her future differently. She had a new, all-encompassing goal: college at NYU.

As an undergrad here, Esmeralda majored in sociology and minored in chemistry, focusing on disparities in health care. After graduating in 2015, she carried those interests with her to NYU’s College of Dentistry, where she’s in her first semester. To relieve some of the pressures of the demanding four-year program, she plays squash at the gym and soccer with members of NYU’s recent alumni network. When out-of-town friends come to visit, she takes them to Brooklyn's Dumbo neighborhood, where she says she likes the perspective of “seeing the two bridges, and what Manhattan looks like from the outside.”

She dreams of someday practicing dentistry in a warmer climate—California, maybe—but at this point is trying to keep an open mind. “I’m open to going pretty much anywhere,” Esmeralda says. “Doesn’t everyone always seem to find their way back to New York, though?”

Know someone you’d like to see featured here? Send suggestions to [email protected]

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Violet Spotlight: Rodney Lin (Steinhardt '19) 

Rodney Lin (Steinhardt '19) didn't always picture himself as a New Yorker: Born to Taiwanese parents in the U.S., he'd grown up in China and figured he'd spend his college years on some bucolic campus in the Midwest. But when his older sister moved to the Big Apple for art school—and a high school teacher gently extolled the advantages of being the proverbial small fish in a big pond—city life started to sound more appealing.

Now the applied psychology major is sure he made the right choice: He likes the constant bustle and anonymity of the city—"you don't really stand out as a college student," he says—and loves exploring new restaurants with the help of a Yelp-savvy friend. (Harbs Japanese cafe in Chelsea is a choice find for afternoon tea.)

After a period of adjustment to university (and city) life, it didn't take Lin long to get involved as a Steinhardt orientation leader and as a member of APUG and Inside Scoop, two clubs for undergraduate applied psychology students. He also joined INSIGHTS, a research team studying how educators can best reach children with different temperaments, and the Peer Health Exchange, which trains university students to talk at local high schools about health education. Inspired by a course in mental health counseling, he hopes to become a therapist one day.

And as for his own self-care? Lin unwinds by playing board games (sometimes until 3 a.m.!) with his roommates in the Broome Street Residential College. Then there's knitting—a newfound favorite relaxation technique. "Lately I'm motivated to get all my homework done early so I can sit down with an episode of 'Friends' and knit," Lin says. "It's very therapeutic." Know someone you’d like to see featured here? Send suggestions to [email protected]