Hometown: Fuzhou, China

What are you passionate about?

“I like playing video games. I play Overwatch. I play 2-3 hours a day. My dorm dad says, “Diego, you spend too much time on the computer!” but I tell him I think it’s just fine. My roommate plays Counterstrike, he wants to win $1 million before he turns 20. But my greatest talent is that I’m good at making PowerPoints. In eighth grade every student in my school needs to do a presentation and they put us in teams of six-eight people. We can pick a random topic and my group did a topic on a Chinese concept that translates to “pretending to be swaggy.” My PowerPoint was the best.”

Why did you choose to study abroad?

“Coming to the U.S. means a better education. I spent whole days preparing. I could have come last year but my mom kept me home for one extra year to make me more eager. I just have this feeling about it. It’s hard to talk with others, to learn the language and the culture. But I need to challenge myself.”

What is special about your hometown?

“It’s a seaside city so people can get more information about the world. There are two special things about it. There’s a statue in Times Square of a guy from Fuzhou because he was once the governor of the whole Southeast of China. And we have the greatest percentage of people from our town that live abroad. When I call to order food on weekends, the owners of the restaurant are from Fuzhou. I was shopping in the Target in the Town Center and I heard my dialect.”