Sixty-First Commencement

Class of 2026
Phone Pyae Sone Tun
Business Administration major

Before Phone Pyae Sone Tun, known on campus as Victor, ever set foot in a college classroom in New York, he had already spent a year teaching middle school students on a remote island in Myanmar, a place with no reliable electricity or clean water.

"I left home at 17, shortly after finishing high school, to volunteer as a community schoolteacher," said Victor. "I spent about a year teaching middle school students and learning how to adapt education to very limited resources."

That experience planted a seed. When Myanmar's 2021 political coup disrupted universities across the country, cutting his studies at Yangon University of Economics short, Victor didn't stop. He started an education initiative to help Burmese youth keep learning while schools and universities were shut down. Within three years, that initiative had reached more than 3,000 students.

He was selected as a YSEALI (Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative) Academic Fellow through the U.S. Department of State, a program that brought him to the United States for the first time in 2022 and introduced him to institutions like Kingsborough. When he moved to New York two years later, he knew where he wanted to go.

This June, Victor will graduate with an associate degree in business administration, a 4.0 GPA, and Dean's List honors every semester. While at KCC, he received the South Pole Scholarship, the Riggio Scholarship and the Kingsborough Foundation Scholarship and was inducted into Phi Theta Kappa.

One of the most memorable experiences he had at KCC was in the Access-Ability Services office, where he worked with students with disabilities and helped build a more accessible campus. "It showed me how important it is for students to feel seen, supported, and able to succeed," he said.

He also interned with World Cares Center through the CUNY Spring Forward Internship Program, where he gained hands-on experience in community support work.

Victor noted that, in Myanmar, openly sharing thoughts and opinions in class was not the norm. "Adjusting to that was difficult at first," he said. "But at Kingsborough, my professors encouraged me to speak up and fully express myself. Their classrooms were welcoming and free of judgment, and over time, they became a safe space for me to grow more confident in sharing my voice." Professors Susan Aranoff, Joseph Consolo, and Tracy Steffy were among those he credits for that shift.

Victor completed his degree requirements during the winter and is now studying at Baruch College, where he is majoring in operations management and analytics. His major reflects his long-term thinking. He is interested in exploring how operations management and analytics might be used for a greater good. “I enjoy understanding how systems work and how they can be improved to run more efficiently. Earlier on, my focus was more general, but through my experiences at Kingsborough and my involvement in different roles, I became more interested in operations and analytics as a way to solve real problems.”

"In the future, I want to continue growing the education initiative I started for Burmese youth," he said. "I also hope to build social enterprises that uplift communities by expanding access to education, opportunities, and long-term support for people in need."

Outside of academics, Victor enjoys conversations about philosophy and psychology as a way of learning how people think, behave, and understand the world around them. He also likes organizing things like files, photo albums, or his room because it helps him feel focused and clear.

His biggest takeaway as a student is that education does not always follow a straight path, so it’s not necessary to have a clear career path from the start. "Things don't need to be figured out all at once," he said. “Even after setbacks, it is still possible to continue growing and moving forward.”