UPDATED: Aug. 1 at 1:18 p.m.

For most freshmen, the transition to college is unpredictable and challenging. For Khang Tran, when he received his acceptance into Syracuse University, his first move into college wasn’t in a dorm on the Hill — it was in Florence, Italy.

“I didn’t realize it was Discovery Florence as in freshman year,” he said. “I kind of just signed on real quick, and then before my first semester, I found out I was going to Italy.”

Tran was accepted into SU’s Discovery Florence Program, which sends first-year students abroad their first college semester.

But this wasn’t Tran’s first abroad experience. He has lived in Vietnam, Japan and France before moving to the U.S. for high school.

“My parents didn’t want me to forget where I came from, so they put me with my different groups of families in different nations,” he said.

Tran is also fluent in four languages, including Vietnamese, Japanese, French and English. After coming back from Italy, he wants to learn Italian.

Tran’s interest in diverse cultures and languages reflects his choice of majors. He is a dual international relations and linguistics major and will pursue the Marine Corps post-graduation.

“I want do special operations and that has a lot to do with counterterrorism,” he said. “You need to have good knowledge on languages and culture.”

On campus, Tran is also on the rugby team. Last semester he had the opportunity to play professionally, where every other day he would practice sometimes three times. His typical day included 6 a.m. practice before class, class, practice again in the afternoon and then again from 9 p.m. to midnight.

When he’s not wrapped up in sports, Tran is a member of a band. He and a few friends started their band, inspired by indie rock act Hippo Campus, after graduating high school. He is the vocalist and rhythm guitarist.

Tran and his band recently finished writing their first EP and hope to hit the recording studio towards the end of the semester. He is glad they were finally able to write their own music rather than just cover songs.

“It was almost like a pathetic cover band and from there we were like, ‘we got to write our own stuff.’ As much fun as it is to sing someone else’s music, we have so much to write too,” Tran said.

Now a month into the second semester of his first year, Tran is loving life at SU. He said he and the friends he met abroad are all still very close and he is hoping to return to Italy during his junior year. Aside from the snow, Tran said SU is a perfect fit.

“After coming back here and seeing the culture, it’s been amazing,” Tran said.

Published on February 12, 2017 at 7:35 pm

Contact Caroline: caschagr@syr.edu