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Learn About Our Students In Their Own Words

At Hunter College we pride ourselves first and foremost on our student body. Hunter has always been ahead of the times in recognizing and empowering students from diverse backgrounds. Having begun as a school for women, Hunter now represents the cultural ethos and demographic complexion not just of New York City, but of America at large. Our students come away with a broader and deeper awareness of their own and others’ cultures. Graduate students at Hunter College carry with them a rich collection of life experiences. Hunter Stories is a place for you to learn about our students in their own words.

Tatiana, Art History, MA

My dad grew up in Beirut during the war. He was about 10 years old when it started, and by the time he was 15 they were trying to draft young boys into the army to fight. My grandparents were able to get him out, and he made it to the states. We've been going to Lebanon once a year for vacation sinc

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Tom, Integrated Media Arts, MA

I enjoy filming observational subject matter and subtle ways of communication. Action, body language, and the way people interact with each other without directly acknowledging each other or addressing the camera. I'm looking for different kinds of movements or actions that are repetitive, and ...

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Reva, Childhood Special Ed, MSEd

My brother and I went to the same school in India. He is two years younger than me. I did really well, but he wasn’t motivated to study and he would score poorly on tests. The teachers reactions were, “He is slow to pick up. He is somewhat dull.” They put him in a separate class that taught the ...

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Julia, Geography, MS

We’ve recently passed the tipping point. The world is more urban than rural now, and we need to investigate how urban vegetation is playing a role in the urban carbon cycle. While studying plant biology in undergrad, I took a software mapping class. Mapping software gets used in lots of things ...

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Lorendo, Childhood Sp. Ed., MSEd

I’ve been teaching for 20 years. I was a school principal in Guyana. I had just been promoted before I left to come here four years ago. I never wanted to be a teacher, I always wanted to be an air hostess or a lawyer. There was a principal living in my area and he encouraged my mom to send me ...

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Muhammad, Accounting, MS

I came here from Bangladesh when I was 18 years old. I had to work five or six nights a week to support myself, plus attend college. Language was the biggest challenge for me, because it’s keeps you alone. But also the culture was different. In Bangladesh, anything and everything that you do, ...

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Diya, Art History, MA

I work in socially engaged art; where art meets activism and social justice. I think the way art is advertised, and in general, it has this false image of being a luxury item. I don’t think that especially benefits the need for diversity in art. I used to work at the Queens Museum, but right now ...

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Chris, Instruct. Leader., Ed D

I am serving as an assistant principal at West Bronx Academy for the Future, a 6-12 school. With high school students, I see there are a lot of competing priorities. Kids might live far away and their travel time is significant to get to school. Or they might need to be working. Those are ...

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Kristen, Art History, MA

My dad had surgery yesterday, and it made me think about when I was a kid and I felt I would be a good doctor because I was really good at science. But I actually wouldn't be, because I wouldn't want to have somebody's life in my hands. That's something that I learned about myself really quickly ...

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Eileen, Deaf & Hard-of-Hearing, MS

I grew up with sound but I lost my hearing when I was eight years old. I started regressing academically, so my parents made the decision to send me to a school for the deaf up in Massachusetts. I was there for three years and it completely changed my life. The teachers were able to get down to ...

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Irini, Art History, MA

Art is big. It’s one big set of questions about the world that you can't ask in any other way. In art history we may work toward finding answers, but at the end of the day, there are so many different ways to define art and to talk about art, or artists, that it’s in constant development, and ...

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Kate, Childhood Education, MS

In undergrad I was determined to do Teach for America. I got in and they based me in Phoenix, Arizona. I quit after six months. People had been pretty nice to me throughout my first 22 years of life and then I was in a position where I was bullied by my co-workers, the veteran teachers. I had no ...

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Cathleen, Deaf Hard-of-Hearing, MS

In 1975 I was at a woman’s concert. It was summer. It was hotter than hell. I was into jazz and performing at that time. For this show there was a woman on stage signing. I couldn’t take my eyes off her, and I said, “I can do that.” And I did. I’ve been signing for thirty-five years. I’m a ...

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Dina, Childhood Special Ed, MSEd

Before this war nobody in the States knew much about Syrians, because Syrians never had a reason to leave their country. I was born and raised here, but I'm very, very tied to Syria. My dad and a friend came here to finish medical school. There’s this small group of doctors from Aleppo, Syria ...

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