I'm Joline, a third-year Economics student with an Industrial Design minor at Georgia Tech. As a descendant of the Cambodian genocide, I carry a deep awareness of the privilege of safety—one many generations before me did not. I see studying Economics as an extension of that privilege: the ability to access data and research to understand how socioeconomic systems shape lives. This perspective drives my commitment to amplifying unheard voices and translating analysis into thoughtful, human-centered solutions.
Since June 2025, I've been interning in go-to-market strategy at QuantHub, a Series A EdTech startup. It's where I first got to see how a business actually finds and reaches its customers—building out CRM workflows, doing market research, qualifying leads. But the part that stuck with me most wasn't the sales mechanics; it was realizing how much of strategy comes down to understanding who you're building for and why they care. That question—who is this actually for?—started shaping how I thought about everything.
That curiosity led me to Product@GT on campus, where I was selected as a Project Lead for a Coca-Cola sponsored product fellowship. I lead a team of five other selected fellows through discovery, user research, and prototyping—work that lives between analysis and empathy. It's still early, but it's taught me how much I value the messiness of problem framing: sitting with ambiguity and figuring out what the real problem is before jumping to solutions. Especially as an Economics major at an engineering-focused institution, I've loved being able to work cross-functionally in these environments, where technical, design, and business perspectives converge.
I see this trajectory as a reflection of how I move through the world. At its core, I hope to continue carrying my family's legacy into work where data, design, and empathy are held to the same standard—and where impact on real lives is never abstract.
2 PM ET at Florence Kopleff Recital Hall, free admission
…I actually think being the jack of all trades comes with its benefits—
especially in environments where problems don't belong to a single discipline
jack of all trades?
or just an extremely ambitious delusional 21-year-old?
but actually, you can do it all.
In another universe, I would’ve been a piano performance major. Three years ago, I never imagined myself at a school like Georgia Tech; no music performance and no obvious space for artistry—I’ve yet to see a grand piano in sight.
Before transferring to Georgia Tech as a third-year, I spent my first-year at Northeastern University and my second at Georgia State University. Northeastern was a “one-in-a-million” type of experience: studying abroad at 18, living in Boston (my favorite U.S. city if you ask me) and meeting some of the kindest people I’ve known to this day. It reshaped my life after a high school experience marked by depression, anxiety, and isolation—years where I ate my lunches alone in the bathrooms and graduated having nearly cut everyone off.
As meaningful as Northeastern was, it wasn’t financially sustainable. In the summer of 2024, my family experienced a major financial setback, and I was faced with two options: take a gap year or enroll at Georgia State. I chose Georgia State—reluctantly.
At that time, I was insecure; my unhealthy obsession of hyper-fixating on prestige from high school came back. While I heard my Northeastern friends securing their first co-ops, I was doing fill-in-the-blank worksheets at Georgia State. Deep down, though, I knew I was capable of doing more than this academically, so I fought.
What most people see is that I’m just a third-year transfer at Georgia Tech. What most people don’t see is that I actually applied for Georgia Tech three times as a transfer before being admitted on my third attempt. Each rejection stung. I questioned whether I belonged or whether I was forcing myself into a mold that didn’t fit the artistry I had always yearned for in a college environment.
Ironically, it was during my time at Georgia State that I decided to reach back out to my former high school piano judge and professor, Dr. Geoffrey Haydon, and to begin studying with him again after having quit piano years earlier. Had I been admitted to Georgia Tech the spring or summer 2025 term, I likely would have let piano go entirely. Instead, I fell back in love with it.
In January 2026, after selecting a date for my solo recital, Dr. Haydon told me that in all his years at Georgia State, he had never known a non-music performance major preparing a full solo recital—let alone a student who no longer attends GSU. That moment crystallized something for me: this path, as messy and nonlinear as it was, gave me exactly what I needed.
No journey is ever linear, and it is a privilege to be in the position I am now and an even bigger privilege to grow up in every university that led me to where I once believed wasn’t for me.
Today, I’m proud to be a Yellow Jacket—and just as proud to still call myself a pianist. You really can do both and live that double life. Be that jack of all trades. And most importantly, never settle to just choose one version of yourself.
—
Below are two clips from my recent piano performance journey. They are works in progress, to be refined ahead of my undergraduate solo recital on Thursday, April 23, 2026 at 2:00 PM ET in the Florence Kopleff Recital Hall at Georgia State University. The recital will also be live streamed for those who'd like to tune in from afar. I hope you enjoy.
Beethoven: Sonata No. 17 in D minor, Op. 31 No. 2 (“The Tempest”) complete
Prokofiev: Sonata No. 3 in A minor, Op. 28
Beethoven: Sonata No. 17 in D minor, Op. 31, No. 2 ("The Tempest")
I- Largo-Allegro
II- Adagio
III- Allegretto
Debussy: La plus que lente, L. 121
Chopin: Ballade No. 3 in A-flat major, Op. 47
Prokofiev: Sonata No. 3 in A minor, Op. 28
Run time: around 50 minutes
If you made it this far down, thank you for reading about my story.
Here are a few more things that I also love doing to end it off: walking my sweet goldendoodle (Mocha), attempting latte art, solo traveling the world, marathon training, [solidcore], trying new restaurants, collecting stationery, journaling, volunteering
cheers!
