Student Ambassador ‘Falls in Love’ With Vancouver

Kimsear Sor (Photo: Theduy Nguyen)

By Anne Sherber

For Kimsear Sor, a student from Cambodia, access to scholarship support made his dream of studying abroad a reality. That, and the fact that, of the more than 100,000 Cambodian students who took the country’s high school graduation test in 2017, Kimsear received the highest score.

Kimsear, a recent graduate from the Vancouver Campus, who majored in business administration with a focus on financial planning and wealth management, was also a student ambassador.

“It’s a new program,” Kimsear says. “Student ambassadors work with student recruitment and the marketing department, posting content on social media to boost engagement. They help with student orientation as well.” He made, and sometimes starred in, videos for the Vancouver Campus’ Facebook and Instagram accounts. The videos cover a wide range of topics — Kimsear might introduce a lineup of campus events, or interview a student, or film other students discussing work-life balance.

Kimsear embraced life as an FDU student, but faced some challenges, he says. Because he is so far from home, the COVID-19 pandemic has been especially isolating. As a part-time worker in a grocery store, he was deemed an essential worker during the early days of the pandemic, and he worried about becoming ill. A planned trip to Japan in 2020 to participate in Model UN had to be canceled.

Still, the entire Vancouver experience means so much to him.

Kimsear works at a small financial services firm in Vancouver and plans to stay on after graduation. He has fallen in love with his adopted city.

“In Cambodia, people are more reserved,” he says. “In Vancouver, the first day I was here, people casually walked up to me to ask me how I was doing.”