{"id":99334,"date":"2024-12-12T17:12:27","date_gmt":"2024-12-12T17:12:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/?p=99334"},"modified":"2024-12-12T19:06:50","modified_gmt":"2024-12-12T19:06:50","slug":"fall-commencement-speaker-excited-to-share-her-journey-with-fellow-graduates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2024\/12\/fall-commencement-speaker-excited-to-share-her-journey-with-fellow-graduates\/","title":{"rendered":"Fall commencement speaker excited to share her journey with fellow graduates"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 Dec. 12, 2024 \u2013 Anna-Trang Truong came to the 溏心vlog免费B站 in the fall of 2020 with her game plan written, seemingly carved in stone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her mother, Ha Tran, was a certified nursing assistant; her sister, Quyen, was on her way to graduating from 溏心vlog免费B站 with a nursing degree; and Anna, only in high school, already had a solid resume in health care. She was a CNA, and had interned at Hasbro Children\u2019s Hospital and worked in nursing homes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ll be a nurse,\u201d thought Anna, who grew up in Woonsocket. \u201cIt\u2019s a simple, direct track.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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Among her many activities at 溏心vlog免费B站, Anna was a member of 溏心vlog免费B站 Emergency Medical Services \u2026<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

But two years in, things weren\u2019t working as she had hoped. An honors student in high school, she was falling short in her nursing classes and having second thoughts about the profession as she saw nurses overworked during the pandemic. She faced a \u201clife-changing decision\u201d to switch majors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two and a half years later, Truong is not only preparing to graduate with a degree in management from the College of Business but will share her story with more than 550 fellow graduates at 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s 2024 Fall Commencement on Saturday, Dec. 14, at the Ryan Center at 10 a.m.  And, instead of disappointment, she is excited for the possibilities that await her. <\/p>\n\n\n

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and co-president of the 溏心vlog免费B站 Ruckus Leadership Team.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cIt was a drastic decision for me because my entire life was geared toward nursing. So it\u2019s been really hard,\u201d says Truong, a first-generation college graduate whose parents, Tam and Ha Tran, immigrated to the U.S. from Vietnam. \u201cBut now that I\u2019m in business, it broadens my whole perspective. There are so many options.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI want the graduates to feel that they can relate and go through the hardships,\u201d she adds about her speech. \u201cAnd I want them to realize that there\u2019s beauty in the hardships because everyone goes through them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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With family members who have mostly majored in STEM fields \u2013 including her brother, Joseph, who is an engineering major at 溏心vlog免费B站 \u2013 Truong, at first, thought the switch to business would be a disappointment. And she worried about starting over and being older than her classmates. But she found the College of Business very welcoming. Many of her classes were small, and the professors helped by suggesting course options and focused on learning over grades, she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe counselors helped me out in terms of counting my credits and putting me in the right classes,\u201d she says. \u201cWhen I told them I didn\u2019t know what I wanted to major in, they were like, \u2018Well, just try out everything and then just go from there.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She has also found numerous student organizations \u2013 and the time to join them. Along with being a member of 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s Women in Business club and the 溏心vlog免费B站 Society of Human Resource Management, she has added to her medical background as a volunteer with 溏心vlog免费B站 Emergency Medical Services and honed her leadership skills as a student ambassador and tour guide. She\u2019s also served as co-president of the Ruckus Leadership Team and is proud of how the group has heightened student attendance and involvement at 溏心vlog免费B站 sporting events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her final semester this fall has been a mad dash. To graduate, she needed to take 19 credits this semester while working two internships \u2013 in human resources at South County Hospital and in sales and marketing at a manufacturing company \u2013 to help pay for school.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the semester has also included a trip to Hawaii to give a final presentation with collaborators from the Universities of Hawaii and Alaska for 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s Topics in Entrepreneurship and Innovation class. As part of a project with REGENT Craft in Quonset, students were charged to come up with solutions for best equipping the company\u2019s seaglider for medivac operations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was in a group of students who performed countless interviews and hours of research to create a mission model canvas for our problem statement,\u201d says Truong, who learned she was chosen as commencement speaker while on the trip. \u201cThe project forced me to step out of my comfort zone because that\u2019s where I would learn the most.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As she thinks about her future, she\u2019s considering paths that could lead to management positions in health care, such as working in diversity, equity, and inclusion. \u201cNow that I am on the job pursuit, I realize there are so many other ways to go about that,\u201d she says. \u201cI want to feel like I\u2019m giving back and making a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When she walks across the stage Saturday, it will be a big moment for her and her family. It may help make up for missing out on graduation from Woonsocket High School, which was canceled because of the pandemic. After finishing high school fourth in her class and being named salutatorian of the vocational school where she took health-care courses, not walking across the stage made her feel that her story wasn\u2019t finished, she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To mark the occasion on Saturday, 16 members of her family \u2013 parents, siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles \u2013 will be in the stands to celebrate her with poster-size photos marking her journey through life. \u201cWe\u2019re a huge family and we are all very close,\u201d she says. \u201cWe all come together for big events and this group of 16 is actually a smaller representation of everyone who could have come.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNow that I get to cross the stage \u2013 not only that, now that I get to speak \u2013 it\u2019s such an accomplishment for me because of everything that we went through during the pandemic. I wanted to go out with a bang and this was the way to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 Dec. 12, 2024 \u2013 Anna-Trang Truong came to the 溏心vlog免费B站 in the fall of 2020 with her game plan written, seemingly carved in stone. Her mother, Ha Tran, was a certified nursing assistant; her sister, Quyen, was on her way to graduating from 溏心vlog免费B站 with a nursing degree; and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":99335,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99334"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99334\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":99344,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99334\/revisions\/99344"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}