When Hazel Oo transferred to CSUN, she was adjusting to more than a new university.

Moving to the United States from Myanmar meant adapting to a new culture, meeting new people and becoming comfortable with unfamiliar situations. For Oo, a senior studying business analytics with a minor in marketing, that transition became an important part of her college experience.

“If I had to describe my time at Nazarian College in a few words, it’s been all about adapting, learning and just putting myself out there,” Oo said.

That willingness to step outside her comfort zone has shaped nearly every part of her journey — from changing her major to becoming a student leader and helping other students find their own sense of community.

Oo grew up watching both of her parents run businesses. Their experiences gave her an early look at management, but when choosing her own field of study, she wanted to explore something different.

“I feel like I learned a lot from my parents about management,” Oo said. “I wanted to major in something related to tech that I’m not too familiar with.”

She initially entered CSUN as an information systems major. After joining the Management Information Systems Association, or MISA, and talking with other students in the organization, however, Oo began reconsidering what she wanted from a career in technology.

She realized she was more interested in interpreting information and using it to guide business decisions than in focusing primarily on information systems.

Those conversations eventually gave her the confidence to switch to business analytics.

For Oo, the appeal of analytics is not simply working with numbers. She enjoys finding the story behind them.

Whether she is working in Excel, Python or Tableau, she likes taking complicated information and transforming it into something people can understand and use.

“I feel like anyone can run an automated script or have AI spit out numbers but knowing the business context and making the data visually intuitive so someone can actually make a decision off of it — that takes a human touch,” Oo said.

Courses in business statistics, regression and forecasting further confirmed that interest, placing her at what she describes as the intersection of technical data work and business strategy.

Marketing gave her another way to explore that intersection. After taking a marketing metrics course at Nazarian College, Oo added a marketing minor and became increasingly interested in customer behavior, market trends and campaign analytics.

She hopes to eventually work in a cross-functional position connecting technical teams with business leaders and using data to help organizations make informed decisions.

Much of her time at Nazarian College has also been devoted to helping other students develop professionally.

Oo serves in leadership roles with MISA and Beta Gamma Sigma, an international business honor society. Through those organizations, she has worked to connect students with professional development opportunities while gaining hands-on experience in leadership, operations, marketing and event coordination.

She encourages students not to assume they need to be studying a particular subject to participate in a professional organization.

“When people think of a club that’s a business club, they think that it has to be a certain major,” Oo said. “If it’s MISA, you have to be an Information Systems major.”

Her own experience proved otherwise.

By remaining involved with MISA after changing majors, Oo continued learning from information systems students while expanding her own professional network.

“You could network more by joining a club not related to your major,” she said. “I feel like networking is the main goal that you should be setting.”

Beta Gamma Sigma expanded that network far beyond CSUN.

In October 2025, Oo represented the Nazarian College at the organization’s leadership conference in Dallas where she met student leaders from chapters around the country and internationally. Participants exchanged ideas, discussed potential virtual collaborations and built relationships that continued beyond the conference.

The experience even produced an unexpected connection.

Oo met another student from Myanmar who had attended the same high school and later became president of a Beta Gamma Sigma chapter in Korea.

Oo also proposed creating a CSUN Beta Gamma Sigma LinkedIn page to help current students remain connected with alumni after graduation.

“I feel like I gained a lot of long-term connections,” she said.

Her involvement in CSUN’s Passport Program reinforced that lesson.

Oo joined Passport after her first semester at CSUN and later became part of the inaugural group of student ambassadors. She credits the program with teaching her how to network, communicate more professionally and become comfortable approaching people she did not already know.

“I’m extroverted, but I used to be only extroverted with the people I was comfortable around,” Oo said. “I really learned how to put myself out there more through the Passport Program.”

As an ambassador, she helped lead professional development and student success activities, including resume preparation for Industry Night and elevator pitch practice.

Oo now applies many of those same skills while supporting students academically.

She works as an instructional student assistant in the Math Department where her responsibilities include tracking coursework and records for classes of more than 30 students. She said the position has strengthened not only her analytical skills but also her ability to explain complicated ideas in an accessible way.

While balancing school, employment and student leadership, Oo has earned a 3.47 GPA and made the Dean’s List for four consecutive semesters.

Working with freshmen has also made her think more deeply about another part of college life: finding a community.

Her advice is simple.

“Talk to your neighbor, because you never know how one little connection is going to turn out one day,” Oo said.

She knows approaching strangers can be uncomfortable. But whether through a class, group project or student organization, she encourages students to give themselves opportunities to meet people.

She remembers noticing another student sitting alone in a club room. Oo asked whether she had eaten and offered to get food with her.

That student eventually became one of her closest friends.

For Oo, those connections have become one of the defining parts of her experience. What began as learning to navigate an unfamiliar country and campus grew into a support system built through student organizations, classrooms and everyday conversations.

Now, as graduation approaches, she wants other students to recognize the possibilities in those small moments, too.

“You just gotta meet your people,” Oo said. “But it’s OK to stay by yourself if you haven’t met your people.”

Sometimes, finding them begins with a hello.