Perimeter Graduate Finds Community Connections

DUNWOODY, Ga.— Khoa Dang (A.S. '24) graduated high school in his native Vietnam, boarded a plane and landed in Georgia adrift.

One of Southwest Gwinnett Magazine's 21 Under 21 for 2024, Dang has now locked onto his direction. The 20-year-old is completing his Business Administration pathway at Perimeter College and this spring will continue his studies at GSU's downtown Atlanta Campus. Since reaching the U.S. he has begun a list of achievements that shows no sign of stopping.

But three years prior, none of that success seemed likely.

"I was so bored," he recalled. "Just like a boat on the sea without a compass, I had no direction. So I had to start over again, knowing nothing, not knowing what to do."

In Vietnam, Dang had found strength and identity in being a figure in the community, and belonging to "a family that always participated together and took care of each other." This became his starting point in Georgia. He had family who had moved here after the Vietnam War, and his sister attended Perimeter College. Dang enrolled at Perimeter and set about forging connections.

Early into his classes, Dang met Associate Professor of English Eric Kendrick, who began advising him on his classes and filling him in on American norms and idioms. Perimeter professors Michele De Liniere, Jennifer Miller and Moulare Kesse guided him, ultimately helping him "define the economics side" of his major.

Dang also points to his mother's journey as inspiration. After the Vietnam War she applied and was rejected for college five times. But she never gave up, eventually becoming a professor and dean of the Community Nutrition Department at the National College of Education, Ho Chi Minh City.

Since entering Perimeter College, Dang has racked up awards, from President's List to Speaker of the Senate in student government. But ask Dang his proudest moments and he'll tell you a story that involves no prizes.

In late fall 2023, a friend asked Dang for help. He's an organizer at Perimeter's Korean Culture Club, working to put together a dance workshop. Dang agreed. The next day Dang, was at Georgia Tech, introducing himself to a dance club on the campus. Weeks later, the project urgently needed funds, so Dang found himself speaking with Perimeter Assistant Dean of Students Theodora Johnson.

Ultimately the collaboration melded into a cross-college K-Pop dance smash success. More than 200 students attended.

The story distills everything Dang was in Vietnam and what he has become in the U.S.: An active community member, attentive to those in need and knowledgeable of where to turn for solutions.

"Whenever my family experienced problems and needed help they got help. Somehow they got help from people in the community. With that miracle, I don't take things for granted. I had the opportunity to come here. I want to give back somehow," he said.

"Service to the community gives me that direction."

— Story by Ben Austin 

— Photo by Bill Roa