Student Profile

For This Student Leader, Connecting Others Is Key

Nhukim Nguyen, junior In some ways, the upcoming year is the culmination of a journey that started in elementary school for junior Nhukim Nguyen.

The biochemistry major and psychology minor will serve as president of Rockhurst’s Student Senate this academic year, something she traces in part to her experience as mayor of her fifth grade class.

“I always tell people that this has been a childhood dream of mine,” she said, laughing.

The desire to have a positive impact on those around her has endured. But it has been shaped, too, by her own experience at Rockhurst and by the example of her older sister, Nhukha Nguyen, ’20, a campus leader in her own right who even served on Student Senate.

“She was not only a big sister, but a mentor for me,” Nguyen said. “She introduced me to so many different organizations like Student Senate. So I owe a lot of my experience and my interest in going to Rockhurst in the first place to her.”

In addition to Student Senate, Nguyen is active with the University’s ambassadors program, Gamma Phi Beta, vice president of recruitment for the medical fraternity Phi Delta Eta, and is the vice president of student experience for the University’s honors program. On top of all of that, she works in a CVS pharmacy and volunteers both as a medical scribe for a local pediatrician and a community resource intern at the JayDoc clinic, a free health care facility associated with the University of Kansas Hospital. None of this is resume-filler, by the way — Nguyen said she believes that serving different populations, in different ways, will make her a stronger health care provider in the future and a better student leader now.

“I love to see all of this connect together,” she said. “I think it’s all about connecting people and connecting with people to make the community better.”