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Cal State L.A. to confer bachelor’s degrees upon 4 SGV teens
Arcadia Weekly Jun 13, 2014
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More than a dozen Early Entrance Program grads in Cal State L.A.’s Class of 2014
Four San Gabriel Valley students–all of them still teenagers–will receive their baccalaureate degrees during Cal State L.A.’s Commencement ceremonies this weekend.
Grant Johnson, Yulan Lin, Tiffany Nguyen and Susanna Sabin are among the more than a dozen Early Entrance Program (EEP) graduates in Cal State L.A.’s Class of 2014. EEP admits extraordinarily gifted youngsters, some as young as 11, directly into Cal State L.A.’s Honors College and provides them with monitored evaluation, counseling, and the opportunity to study with like-minded peers.
Grant Johnson (Pasadena), 17, political science and economics major. A Dean’s List student, he will attend the London School of Economics master’s program in political theory this fall. His ultimate goal is to attend law school and then practice law as a prosecutor. He is a recipient of the Salaha Economics Scholarship, Shigenori Komuro International Economics Scholarship, and the Golden Eagle Award of Excellence. On campus, he has been actively involved with Associated Students, Inc. (ASI) student government, serving as a campus affairs representative-at-large, business and economics representative, an associate justice chair, and a strategic planning committee chair. He has also served in leaderships roles for the Political Science Association, the EEP Club, and the Mock Trial Club. He is a member of the university’s Golden Key and the Pi Sigma Alpha Political Science honor societies. Off campus, he also volunteers as a consumer counselor for the Los Angeles County Department of Consumer Affairs.
Yulan Lin (Arcadia), 18, chemistry major. Lin, who is a recipient of a distinguished Edison Scholarship, will continue her research assistantship at Caltech and explore different opportunities before applying to graduate school. She has been named a Microbiology Undergraduate Research Fellowship Fellow and Amgen Fellow at Caltech. As a MBRS-Research Initiative for Scientific Enhancement Fellow at Cal State L.A., she conducted research on “Evaluating the chemistry triplet: Is there a preferred order of presentation?” under the direction of Professors James Rudd and Ji Son. She has received many accolades, including the Chemistry and Biochemistry Student Award in Chemistry, the American Chemical Society’s Organic Chemistry Award, the Chemistry and Biochemistry Gutierrez-Tunstad Chemistry Scholarship, and the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship. On campus, she has served as academic chair, secretary, and assistant social chair for the EEP Club. She also served as president for the Chemistry and Biochemistry Club. Off campus, she has volunteered as an accompanist, voice coach, and assistant choir director for the Saturday Conservatory of Music.
Tiffany Nguyen (West Covina), 19, biochemistry and anthropology major. After graduation, she will attend John A. Burns School of Medicine at the University of Hawaii, with the goal of becoming a physician. A Dean’s List student, she is a member of Phi Kappa Phi, Beta Beta Beta, and Golden Key honor societies. She is also a member of the Chemistry and Biochemistry Club. She served as president for the American Medical Student Association, social chair and yearbook chair for the EEP Club, undergraduate academic senator for ASI, and a student representative for the Student Policy Committee and Student Health Advisory Committee. Off campus, she has volunteered at Huntington Hospital and California Hospital Medical Center. In addition, she has conducted research with Professor Raymond Garcia on “Athersclerosis and Lipoproteins.”
Susanna Sabin (Pasadena), 19, anthropology major. Sabin plans to attend graduate school to study human skeletal biology or bioarchaeology and conduct further research in those areas after graduation. Her goal is to one day spearhead an educational program to teach critical thinking through the exploration of natural human history and to publish popular and academic works on integrated scientific topics. A Dean’s List student, she is a member of the EEP Club, the Society for Biological Anthropology, Lambda Alpha, and the Golden Key and Phi Kappa Phi honor societies. She has volunteered at Glendale Memorial Hospital and at Ten Thousand Villages in Pasadena. Working with Professor Elizabeth Miller, she conducted research on “Tracing the Origin of Tuberculosis: An Integrated Paleopathological Perspective.”
Working for California since 1947: California State University, Los Angeles is at the heart of a major metropolitan city, just five miles from Los Angeles’ civic and cultural center. More than 20,000 students and 230,000 alumni-with a wide variety of interests, ages and backgrounds-reflect the city’s dynamic mix of populations. Six Colleges offer nationally recognized science, arts, business, criminal justice, engineering, nursing, education and humanities programs, among others, led by an award-winning faculty. Cal State L.A. is home to the critically-acclaimed Luckman Jazz Orchestra and to the Honors College for high-achieving students. Programs that provide exciting enrichment opportunities to students and community include an NEH-supported humanities center; a NASA-funded center for space research; and a forensic science program, housed in the Hertzberg-Davis Forensic Science Center. www.calstatela.edu
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