Camille Luong

Pronouns: she/they

Hometown: St. Petersburg, FL

Why I'm majoring in Urban Studies: Growing up, I always heavily romanticized New York City, especially because it was the setting of so many influential books, movies, and musicals: Catcher in the Rye, The Great Gatsby, 13 Going on 30, The Last Five Years, Rent, etc. I also loved reading Humans of New York interviews, and really seeing how urban spaces -- with their huge concentration of people and places -- uniquely shaped the stories and lives of individuals. In the spring of my gap year before college, I lived in New York, and while reading books like The Leavers by Lisa Ko or the essay anthology Goodbye to All That, I felt an urge to learn more about what exactly makes "the city" so unique in the human experience. Why are people so drawn to the city as a sort of "utopia"? What about urban design influences the way we move through spaces, or interact with people? I'm majoring in urban studies to hopefully learn the answers to some of these questions, as well as bolster my understanding of urban spaces every time I inevitably encounter them.

Favorite class / professor (and why): I'm a big Ato Quayson fan: I took his introsem City, Space, Literature (where I learned about how the city as a setting is strategically used in storytelling) and went on the Stanford short-term faculty-led study abroad trip in Accra, Ghana (where I learned about how urban spaces developed in Accra in the face of colonialism, the slave trade, and modern development). Dr. Quayson is an incredibly lively and knowledgable professor and I've really enjoyed learning from him.

Other academic interests (major, minors): Modern Languages minor (Mandarin Chinese and Vietnamese)