Elevating the Student Voices of Tomorrow

SEASON 3 — EPISODE 3

Elevating the Student Voices of Tomorrow (Part 2)

Danny Nguyen returns for Part 2 of his powerful two-part interview — shifting the conversation from personal history to future impact.

Now serving as Vice President of Administrative Services at Mission College, Danny brings both lived experience and institutional leadership to the table. Having once been a refugee child searching for belonging, and later an educator deeply shaped by his students, he understands the transformative power of being heard.

In this episode, Danny shares his optimistic vision for the future of international education — one rooted in empathy, representation, and authentic student voice.

Yet optimism does not mean complacency.

Danny candidly reflects on areas where higher education must improve, particularly in recognizing and valuing the unique experiences international students bring to classrooms, workplaces, and communities. From the realities of job prospecting to the emotional weight of comparison, this conversation explores both the challenges students face and the systems that must evolve.

At its heart, this episode is about one core belief: when we elevate student voices, we strengthen the future of education itself.

Episode Summary

02:09 – Danny reflects on how meeting international students from diverse backgrounds shaped him as a teacher.
 05:30 – How his teaching experiences influence his leadership role at Mission College.
 07:42 – His mission to actively listen to and elevate student voices.
 10:44 – What friends, family members, and higher education professionals can do to support international students.
 13:46 – Danny’s optimism for the future of international education and the innovation sparked by diversity.
 16:36 – Why the value of international student experiences is often overlooked in job prospecting.
 18:49 – Managing the weight of comparison and advice for students navigating similar pressures.
 20:51 – The importance of community and belonging for international students.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Hello, hi, how are you? Welcome to International Student Stories. I am your host, Simon Hamlin. This is part two of a two-part interview with Danny Wang. Danny holds a Doctor of Pharmacy degree from the University of Southern California, and he's currently the Vice President of Administrative Services at Mission College in Santa Clara, California. I highly encourage you to listen to the part one interview before listening to this part two. In part one, we learned about Danny's background and what led him to this career in higher education. In part two, we go more in depth on his current work in the higher ed world and specifically his work with international students. He's on a mission to elevate students' voices. Danny is a huge advocate for students. He emphasizes the importance of creating a sense of community and offering support for international students. We also touch on his own unconventional career path and what the future holds for international student education. Before we jump into Danny's interview, please help us share these inspiring stories with your friends and family. Take a minute to subscribe to and follow the International Student Stories podcast. You can also rate us, share the podcast with others, and write a review. Go ahead and pause this episode right now so you can take action. Thank you for your help. Here is Danny Wang on International Student Stories. When you started teaching and you said when you got in front of a class, that was a real pivotal moment for you. Did you have international students in your classes? I did. Did you feel like bigger connection with them or do you have memories of those early interactions with international students in your classes?

SPEAKER_01 2:09

I do. It was an amazing experience. It was through the pharmacy program and it was a fee-based program. It was a little bit different. What then, and we we distinguished that from kind of our credit instruction where our normal classes are. But these are students, and we were trying to create a program to make it accessible to a lot of students out there that were, we used to call, you know, kind of non-traditional students, right? Students that would not otherwise on that path to be in college, didn't know what they wanted to do, or didn't have citizenship yet. So they were non-residents, and it cost them too much to go to a college or university. And to just see their families invest in them and cobble together money to be in this program so that they could become a pharmacy technician and provide for their family, have some livelihood. And those are the students that were in this class. So they came from all walks of life, and all, you know, we had older students, we had moms, we had students from many different countries. And so I remember a couple of things. I remember being very humbled by the stories of all of those students. I remember learning a lot about other cultures. I made it a point. I don't think I can do this anymore, but back when I was a younger person and I had a pretty good memory, I would have the students introduce themselves, you know, all 30, 32 of them. And then I would recite back every single name. And again, it goes back to that name thing. And I made it a point to pronounce it precisely, whether it was an Indian name or whether it was, you know, a Chinese name. I just made sure that that pronunciation the best that I could, and I was able to do that for every class. And then the potlucks, as you can imagine, were just out of this world, right? Of all the smorgasborg and things that were brought there. But just the different perspectives, too, are just made for such an enriching class. Can you imagine a class where you had a high schooler sit in there and then have somebody from Pakistan share their experience of what it means for them to be able to provide for their family and their backgrounds and just that dialogue, right? And just those perspectives in that same room, all with the same mission of trying to learn this and apply it in different ways. And another thing, actually, Simon, I thought about it. All of our work, whether it's education, whether it's you know podcasting, whether it's pharmacy, it's about being able to relate to people. And what I saw in that class was just through all those diverse experiences, when you talk about pharmaceutical care or patient care, and I'm getting a little bit now, I think, into my pharmacy, wearing my pharmacy hat, but to be able to understand the cultural differences, right? The different beliefs and how that factors in, how that plays into the care that you're providing a patient. And that was a perspective that in all their wisdom and experiences, that the students, I didn't, I didn't even have a lesson around that. The students brought that lesson into the classroom. And that was just amazing when you hear about that dialogue and somebody raising their hand and going, Well, you know, when you're trying to advise or consult a patient and you're telling them and giving them these examples of the diets to eat, like nobody eats that, Danny, you know, or sometimes when people have certain cultural or religious beliefs, like they're, you know, so I was learning, and that's another moment that I had where I was like, I'm a teacher, but I'm still learning. And the other students learned as well. And so it was just so beautiful to experience that.

SPEAKER_00 5:15

And how have those lessons carried over to your role now? I guess first your role now. Talk about your position now, what that entails, and I'd love to hear how those early experiences inform your current position at mission.

SPEAKER_01 5:31

Yeah, so my current position is I am the vice president of administrative services. We have three vice presidents and serving under a college president, and we have a vice president of instruction, we have a vice president of student services. And I think those two sectors probably are pretty intuitive of what those vice presidents do. I'm administrative services, so really it's everything else. It's it's really um campus operations, it's really budget and finance, it's keeping our students uh safe and creating a healthful, positive environment for our students. It's the technology, the infrastructure, all of the partnerships and the vendors and all that. So that's my role. But I would say I'm very fortunate because I think I bring a different perspective to this role. And the role that you can imagine at other schools, you know, you'd have a vice president, it's very much a business officer role. And I think because I've had such a wide breadth of experiences in other areas with instruction and with different programs and services, and I worked in many, many different areas at the college. I've been here for over almost 17, 18 years now. And so I've been at the college for a long time and wearing a lot of different hats. And so I think I have a unique experience. But I would also maybe argue that not that unique because I think the role of educators in general, I think have now it demands something a little bit different, you know, Simon. It's like you can't come into these roles and thinking that you're gonna put your blinders on and sit behind spreadsheets and look at data and you've gonna be able to solve all the needs of our students. And so I think that mindset, everybody's role, I think, is naturally now changing. So I think as educators, we all welcome that. And as lifelong learners, we definitely welcome that. But, you know, there's days where I feel like a lot of the experiences that I had and working with students really prepares me very well, right? To kind of think like the student and remembering back to some of my own experiences. But I'm also humbled by the fact that sometimes I come onto campus when I'm driving away from campus and I'm thinking, man, I thought I knew it or I thought I had it figured out, and and I still don't. And I'm definitely okay with that. And I think, you know, as lifelong learners, we welcome that and we want to continue that growth and that learning along with our students. But I am on a mission now to try to elevate student voices because I think it's not about what I know and what I've learned and the experiences that I had, it's about our students today, right? And what they're telling us and what they need. It changes from week to week, month to month, year to year. And I think while the experiences I had helps prepare me a little bit, the most important thing is that it's prepared me to know that I'm not fully prepared, right? That I don't know everything, that those perspectives are different. And so trying to find ways to elevate that student voice, of trying to bring students into those spaces where they can advocate for themselves. I think that agency is something I never felt like I had. I never felt like I had that in my peers and many of our students out there, and especially for our international students, just trying to come into like I can't even imagine. Like at least I have a shared experience with a lot of Vietnamese Americans during that diaspora of all of us coming here. But for your international students who's coming from all over the globe and then just not knowing what to expect here and not coming with their family. I speak so much about my family, but I've always had my family.

SPEAKER_00 8:49

Right. Most of your students are coming on their own families back home.

SPEAKER_01 8:53

Exactly. So just finding ways to make sure that we're able to listen to our students and hear what their needs are and to be able to address those needs. And as we all know, all those needs are changing. If we had this chat two years ago, Simon, I think I, you know, it would have been a slightly different conversation, right? And now with COVID and the pandemic and everything going on in the world, it's completely different. I think about coming over as an immigrant, and my story is pretty typical. And even then, having the support of community, you know, even the shoes, there, they were shoes that I maybe the first pair wasn't so great, but maybe the subsequent pairs were a little bit better. But I we had that support from the community, right? We had we had a country that embraced us, that tried to support us. We had immigration policy that really helped with that. We had support and safety nets and structures. And now just comparing that with where we are now, of just some of the sentiments around immigration across the globe and the rise of some more conservative populist movements and thinking and how we think about immigrants and diversity. It's just it gives me pause that I do think about it. And it just something that I juxtapose all the time and compare about what my experience is as harrowing and as personal as I thought, and difficult as I thought that was, and just thinking about what that means now for today's students gives me pause.

SPEAKER_00 10:12

What are some of the things that we can do to help highlight those student voices? It sounds like that is a big passion of yours, something that you're focused on. And with how much things are changing, and I'd imagine, especially from when you first started admissions 17 years ago, seeing that evolution of maybe changes in students, what are some things that you feel like we can do to best serve the student and help them share their voice with the rest of the world?

SPEAKER_01 10:44

Well, I think, and first of all, and I, you know, it's something that I'm focused on, but really on behalf of Mission, right? As Mission is so equity-minded and we love our international students and we just know how it enriches our campus and our student population here. So as a college, we are trying to focus on these things. And I'd say a couple of things, you know, I think giving students that agency is one, right? So kind of having mentors and connecting students with instructors, and we have wonderful faculty. Like it's not, you know, this is not a big university where the faculty are just like, don't bother me, I'm doing research, right? So we have faculty who are just so student focused already. But even so, you know, we've got students we know who are out there who would, even as faculty open their doors, we know they would never step over that threshold to engage with a faculty member. And we've got to figure out why and how to help our students empower them, right? With that sense of agency and to be able to approach a professor. It's both ends, working with professors and also working with the students. We're doing some of that work through just mentor programs. We've got an HSI Hispanic Serving Institution Grant and an AAPI grant and a PZ grant for Asian and Pacific Islanders that we're working with. That's really got that focus, right? We operate by participatory governance here. So everything is by committee, everything is through a shared governance. And in theory, students you know are front and center with that. But even so, we recognize that, you know, not all students can just, you know, just because we give them a seat at the table doesn't mean that it's going to be conducive for them to come and really raise their hands and speak their voices and their truths and what they really need and want openly. And so we're trying to find ways to better do that. We also know that our students are busy, they've got families, they've got jobs, they've got, you know, so finding ways to help compensate our students, you know, for their time and incentivize them a little bit just to be part of these initiatives, to come to the table and to openly share and to give them their perspectives is so valuable for us as we're trying to figure out what we want to, you know, how we do things in the future. We can't do that without students. And so trying to find a way to do that, giving them more opportunities through research, through mentorships with corporate, right? So we're in a corporate rich environment with Apple and Google and so all of those connections that we're learning for our students. And I would say for our international students in particular, right? They've just kind of because our students have grown up in this environment, they've at least got the lay of the land, you know, for our international students to be able to help them start to build that community and making those connections and having those networks and paying them.

SPEAKER_00 13:17

Incentivizing them, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:18

Incentivizing them, yeah, yeah. It's important for us to provide opportunities and jobs for our international students. So those are just some of the ways that we're thinking about that we think might help.

SPEAKER_00 13:28

And what excites you most when you look at the trajectory of where we're headed with international students and their impact on our schools, on our country, on the world, what are some things that inspire you most about the future of international students' contributions?

SPEAKER_01 13:47

It's extremely exciting to think about. I mean, when you think about the diversity of thought and ideas, and we're in such a, you know, an innovative area that feeds on and thrives on new ideas and new ways of thinking. So I think that bodes really well for our international students and just bringing more students from different countries and cultures into that space. And then recognizing and acknowledging that Silicon Valley and corporates in general struggle with diversity, right? That's one of the problems that many of them are trying to solve. They recognize that they need this innovation and this diversity in thought and ideas. They don't know how always best to go at it.

SPEAKER_00 14:29

Do you have suggestions in that realm? Do you have certain ideas or things that you would recommend to help with that?

SPEAKER_01 14:36

I think it starts with some of those partnerships. And I think like a great start, and I'm not touting kind of emissions, you know, what way would we do? But I think in general, right, having our corporate partners partner with a community college, you know, is a great first start, right? If you're looking for diversity, you don't need to look far. In every community in California, you've got within a stone's throw a community college, you know, and so if you're Google, if you're PayPal, if you're someone around here and you you need some help with this diversity problem, you've got a fresh something that you can tap into, right? In a partner like Mission College. And then in turn, that gives our international students some opportunity there. So I think there's just some real connections there. I think another thing is to break away from this notion of like what it means to be prepared for a corporate job, right? Do you have a bachelor's in cybersecurity? Do you have these different certificates and degrees and credentials, which are important? But I know in speaking to our business and corporate partners, equally as important is the critical thinking and the interpersonal skills and the emotional intelligence and the global thinking. And I think our international students are well positioned for those types of things. So it's all about how do we articulate that to our corporate partners, right? To say, hey, so this is an easy way for you to think about it. It's like, oh, just give me that student that has a bachelor's in software engineering, computer science. Like, okay, you can have that. Or you can have the student that comes with this rich experience having taken these computer science classes, having worked at a computer science company in India and you know, or other country, or and and having this life experience and coming to bringing that to bear for their jobs. Just think about to be able to articulate all those skills and all that all that experience. I think that gets lost. You know, the employers are just looking for, okay, just tell me what degree they have. But what about all this other stuff that they can bring to the table? So I think that's an opportunity.

SPEAKER_00 16:37

Well, you're a perfect example, Danny. Look at your route. It definitely wasn't linear, and it's something we talk about a lot at study in the USA. The journey is never a linear route. And we talk about it in terms of choosing a school, but the life journey isn't a linear route. And if someone had just looked at you and said, all right, let's look at what his degree is in, and we'll pigeonhole him into this route, we would have lost out on this great advocate who's now at Mission College doing all these wonderful things for students and advocating for them and helping their journey.

SPEAKER_01 17:16

Yeah, thank you, Simon. That's very, very gracious of you. Thank you. I appreciate that. And I and you're right. I mean, it is an unconventional career path, and it is, I get that question a lot, like, you know, so you've got this doctorate in pharmacy, like, what the hell are you doing with it, you know? And I've just, you know, but first of all, I think it's providing that broader perspective of like learning is learning, right? And experiences are experiences. So I think, you know, having gone through that educational journey, you get taught many things beyond just the actual discipline. And that's one of the beautiful things about education, right? And it doesn't matter where you get your education, how you get your education, or how far you get in your education, it's an appreciation asset that gains value over time. You know, when you're in this space and you open your mind and your heart to thinking and learning new things and figuring out kind of how to think through problems and how to solve problems and how to engage with others, all of those things are skills and experiences that you take with you and they appreciate in value because as the world gets more complex and your jobs get harder and there's more stress, you have that to lean on, regardless of what your actual discipline and content matter that you learned is.

SPEAKER_00 18:26

So for other students out there right now who might feel like you felt in your early trajectory and education, feeling that not feeling like you belonged and struggling to fit in and some comparison challenges. Students who are going through that, what advice would you give them?

SPEAKER_01 18:50

I'd start with definitely that there's more than one way to win, right? There's everybody's journey is a little bit different, everybody's path is is going to be a little bit different, and to give themselves kind of that grace and permission to fail and to try different things, you know, because we all have these different experiences. And I I recently read somewhere about the only person that kind of knows how far they've come is you, right? That's the only person that knows. So you know what your struggles have been, you know how much growth you've experienced, you know how hard you've worked to have that growth. And so just because it's not benchmarked in the conventional sense, but you know that for yourself. And so I think to be able to give yourself that grace and to celebrate and make sure that you acknowledge and you take the time, right, to really see your self-worth and what you've you've been able to accomplish, I think is important and figuring out a way to kind of keep going, right? Finding kind of those people in your lives. And I I look back and you asked me about kind of all my seminal moments and certain people that have had huge influences in my life. And I think, and and I get it, not everybody has the luxury and the you know being blessed and having a family like mine where I just always knew my family was going to be there for me no matter what. But had I done things a little bit differently, I would have, I think, opened myself up a little bit more to others to be able to help and not following along that trajectory of just having that immigrant mindset of just trying to grip my teeth and get through everything on my own, especially nowadays.

SPEAKER_00 20:27

It just too hard, it's too difficult, you can't do it alone. And that's what's so so wonderful about what you're doing now at Mission is you really are creating those types of communities, especially for students who don't have their family with them, like we talked about earlier, to just have that sense of community and people to advise them and groups to connect with. It's so, so important.

SPEAKER_01 20:52

I agree wholeheartedly. And I think that's one of the things that I tell a lot of new students through my experience. I wish that I had been always seeking that sense of belonging. And I think so that's why for new students, if they can, being part of a community is just so important. You can't figure out stuff on your own. And again, there's a difference, right? And I know a lot of students now back then I was thinking, oh, I'm just gonna, it's just through sheer grit, right? And just the this the Vietnamese way, hard work. We can work our way through anything and we survived all this, and I'm gonna beat everybody else around me in this class. And that was the mentality that I had. But not everybody can have that mentality, and like we talked about, like things have changed and things in the world is so complicated now. And the equivalent of that that I'm seeing now in a lot of students is who have that mentality is thinking that, well, all the information is there, right? So I've got my my fingertips, you know, I can just Google it and I just got all the information. But there's a huge difference between having the information, right, and really truly benefiting from the wisdom and the insights and guidance perspectives of and the support, right, of your peers and your teachers and staff and mentors and your community, right? So I always urge all of our students is the first thing that you've got to do is to bring your authentic self and insert yourself, put yourself out there and really try to become part of a community because you're gonna need it and the community needs you, right? So at here at Mission, our international students just add so much and enrich the community here, they're part of it. And so you change the complexion of that community as you put yourself out there and you insert yourself into that and you bring your perspectives and your experiences to that community. So the community needs it just as much as you need that community. And so that would be my message, and just because that sense of belonging is just, and it works both ways, but that sense of belonging was such a big, big theme for me. And it still is, it still is in some ways.

SPEAKER_00 22:45

Danny, thank you for bringing your authentic self to this conversation. And before we finish, is there anything that I haven't asked you about or any other topics that you want to cover before we finish?

SPEAKER_01 22:56

No, I don't think so. Thank you for the questions, and I just love to just have this opportunity to share a little bit more about myself, but in the process, helping to remind me to re-engage in that thinking, right, about our students. And so thank you for that. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 23:11

This feels really good. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, your enthusiasm and your passion absolutely comes through, and it's gonna give a lot of our international student audience a lot to think about and a lot to work with on their journey. So thank you for that. Thank you again for listening to International Student Stories, and thank you to our team for putting together this episode. Stories are meant to be shared, so please pass the story on to a friend or family member who needs to hear a good story. A few other quick notes. I invite you to check out the show notes if you want more details on some of the topics discussed in this episode. For all the latest podcast news, stop by our website, study in the USA Global.com forward slash podcast. That's S-T-U-D-Y in the USA Global.com forward slash podcast. Subscribe to the International Student Stories Podcast to be alerted on new episodes. And contact us if you know of a current or former international student whose story needs to be shared with the world. Goodbye for now, be well, and much love to each and every one of you.