A L U M N I M A G A Z I N E - Colby-Sawyer College

West Meets East
By Cindy Benson
Connecting Communities through
Friendship Families
In August 2008, Duong Ngoc
Thuy “Zui” Nguyen ’11 boarded
a 30-hour flight in Hanoi,
Vietnam, to attend Colby-Sawyer College.
Nguyen, then 19, had attended a local
university for a year to study international
trade and decided she would get a better
education in the United States. Her mother
had studied nursing in the Czech Republic
and encouraged her daughters, Duong
and her younger sister, Anh, who is also a
student at Colby-Sawyer, to study abroad
and “see the outside world.”
While Nguyen was searching for a college,
a friend who had studied in New
England sent photos of the fall foliage,
which piqued Nguyen’s interest.
She researched her options
and found Colby-Sawyer, which
not only looked beautiful but was
ranked among the top regional colleges
in New England and offered
18 COLBY-SAWYER ALUMNI MAGAZINE
the generous financial aid Nguyen needed.
Once accepted, Nguyen prepared for
the experience of a lifetime. “I was both
nervous and excited,” she says. “This was
my first time away from my parents.”
The idea of studying away during college
was something Nguyen had been
mentally prepared for since sixth grade,
when she was accepted into one of Hanoi’s
top schools, one of only 30 students in her
grade. She specialized in English and took
additional lessons after school at an English
language center.
“I knew from the time I was young I
wanted to study abroad,” Nguyen says.
“Other relatives and friends had done
“I knew from the time I was young
I wanted to study abroad.”
–Zui Nguyen ’11
PHOTO: Marsha Johnson ’59
it, and it is becoming more common in
Vietnam.”
Home Away from Home
Zui Nguyen is part of a fast-growing population
of international students at Colby-
Sawyer that has increased from five in
2008 to more than 100 projected for
fall 2011. Twenty nations, ranging from
Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, are now represented
by students on campus, a result of
the college’s recent efforts to expand its
international recruitment and to globalize
its student population.
Every international student is matched
with a local Friendship Family, a program
administered through International
Student Services at Colby-Sawyer
that provides more support and
connections for these students.
Nguyen was matched with Marsha
Johnson ’59 and her husband Bruce