Minh Le: Finding Her Second Home

Le visiting the United Nations as part of the Levermore Global Scholars program

Interning as a nurse assistant in Hanoi, Vietnam

Sporting brown and gold as she represents Adelphi at a college fair in Vietnam

Minh Le brought hopes and dreams with her from Vietnam—along with her boundless energy. She introduced herself in an interview with the pronouncement: “One fun fact about me is I like watermelon.”

She likes a lot more than that. This nursing student from Vietnam likes shopping, admiring Garden City houses, taking the train to Manhattan, visiting the United Nations and even navigating the subway system—for starters.

“I wanted to pursue my career as a future nurse, and I love New York too, so I looked for the best university in the Northeast area for nursing,” Le said. “Adelphi offers a good program for nursing and a low student-to-faculty ratio.”

As an international student, Le worried about fitting in to a different culture and country. Those fears were quelled, however, once she decided to join Adelphi’s Levermore Global Scholars (LGS) program.

“Everyone in there is so close because it’s a small community,” Le said. “We travel, we have picnics—we went to a museum together as a whole class, and it was really fun.”

She said the faculty also helped her feel at home, particularly Devin Thornburg, Ph.D., an affiliated LGS faculty member. “He helped me a lot through my first semester,” she said. “He’s got my back.”

Le also appreciates how her LGS classes and activities taught her about various cultures and global issues, all of which she said will help her understand her patients when she becomes a nurse.

She got a chance to put her nursing education into practice when she returned home to Hanoi, Vietnam, for the summer to intern as a nurse assistant at a hospital there. And that’s not the only way she’s kept busy.

Le has been sharing with prospective students from Vietnam how Adelphi can be their home away from home as well. She represented Adelphi at a school fair in Vietnam, where she handed out brochures written in Vietnamese. The table was so popular that Le didn’t even have a chance to look at the brochure before they were all taken!

_{Additional reporting by Ela Schwartz}