Graduation day will be an extra special day for Tuyet “Hannah” Nguyen – for reasons beyond the obvious. This weekend, the Stetson University international business and marketing double-major will meet her grandmother for the first time ever.

Nguyen is just one of the many inspirational students graduating from Stetson this month. Her family is from Vietnam, and she was raised in refugee camps in the Philippines until she was 10. Her family moved to Winter Haven, Fla., in hopes of providing Hannah and her younger sisters a better life. Until now, none of them has ever met their grandmother.

Their grandmother, Hoa Nguyen, is traveling to Florida from Vietnam just in time for the Stetson Commencement ceremony. Also attending will be her maternal grandparents, her parents, sisters, cousins and aunts.

“I have such mixed emotions,” Nguyen said earlier this week. “Having her here at my graduation ceremony is almost like giving back to my parents and grandparents – a hope that we’re going to be OK. We have just become stable in the past few years. Graduation represents that our family is improving and, hopefully, we’re going to have a better life from here on out.” Hannah is the first in her family to graduate from college.

While attending Stetson, Nguyen’s life was full of the ups and downs that have been part of her life, and she faced many health challenges even at her young age. She became very sick from a stomach illness brought on by stress and diet issues. Even under that duress, she maintained her natural optimism and made a lasting impression on everyone she met; while she was ill, faculty, staff, facilities crew, students, and friends all helped nurse her back to health.

“The LBC facilities custodians actually threw me a big party just a couple of weeks ago,” Nguyen said. “My prayers are being answered all the time. I can now give back.”

Immediately after graduation, Nguyen plans to spend three months in a social entrepreneurship internship in Costa Rica, building a sustainable blueprint for a nonprofit there (CEPIA – Culture, Education, Psychology for Infants and Adolescents). The internship is through the Sullivan Foundation – another branch of the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Foundation with which Stetson is already associated. Savannah-Jane Griffin, associate director of Community Engagement at Stetson, had invited Nguyen to attend a Sullivan retreat in North Carolina in March, and now Nguyen hopes to help start that program at Stetson.

In one year, Nguyen plans to return to school to earn a Master of Business Administration degree.

For now, she’s looking forward to the big day – and meeting with her grandmother. She’s reflecting on her four years at Stetson and looking forward to the future.

“Stetson is my home,” she said. “Being here, I’ve realized how much more there is for me to do in life. I just feel very passionate about my home. We are change-makers here.”

She credits everyone from her professors, the facilities crew, and even her peers for the success she has gained at Stetson. “I always liked Stetson’s descriptive phrase, ‘where learning and values meet.’ Stetson produces graduates who do so much with their lives. I’m inspired every day to do more to help others – not only by faculty, but also by my peers. They’re all changing the world!”