Former Opera Singer Leaves CSUN on High Note

A light drizzle cut short Cal State Northridge’s 17th Honors Convocation on Tuesday night, the first of a week of graduation ceremonies, but failed to douse the dreams held by the university’s top 1,000 students--all with grade point averages of 3.5 or higher.

President Blenda Wilson delivered the keynote address, calling the students, seated with their families in a clearing surrounded by orange trees, “our gift to the future.” She challenged them to avoid the mistakes of the past as they make their way through the world.

“We don’t have to do everything that is possible to do,” said Wilson, telling the students to ask of their future pursuits: “Will this advance mankind? Will this serve the poor and politically oppressed?”

Angelique Burzynski, who is pursuing a career in special education, seems destined to march to Wilson’s orders.

Burzynski was named this year’s Wolfson Scholar, CSUN’s highest academic honor. The 41-year-old graduating senior earned a 4.0 GPA and plans to continue teaching music and dance to special education students at Pasadena City College and Five Acres, a school for abused children in Altadena.

Special education is Burzynski’s third career. After graduating from John Muir High School in Pasadena, Burzynski knew she wanted to sing for a living but didn’t have money for college. So she worked as an administrative assistant at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for nine years to earn enough to pay for voice lessons. She had her operatic debut in 1987 playing the part of Mimi in Puccini’s La Boheme in Los Angeles.

She went on to sing in dozens of other productions in the United States and Europe. Her opera career ended in 1992, however, after she was diagnosed with an eye disease that damaged her sight.

“I couldn’t see the conductor,” she said.

Eventually she turned the volunteer work she had been doing on the side, working with special-needs children, into a full-time passion.

“I chose opera for my first career,” she said. “Special education seemed to choose me.”

Duke Huynh, 35, of Reseda and Thang Le, 23, of Northridge will earn civil engineering degrees this week. Both are naturalized immigrants from Vietnam and represent the changing face of California’s student populace. Both said they entered the United States as political refugees after members of their families were jailed by the Viet Cong. The men met at CSUN and frequently studied together.

“We shared pain and suffering,” Huynh said. “And we yelled at each other a lot.”

“Only when we had papers due the next morning,” said Le.

Huynh, who has been paying for school with a Caltrans job, plans to continue working for the state as he pursues a master’s degree.

Le has gotten a job at a Pasadena engineering firm.

Like the two soon-to-be engineers, Sheri Rabiei was also driven out of her homeland--Iran in her case--by a hostile government. Rabiei, who is Jewish, escaped Iran after the Islamic revolution of 1979 for fear of religious persecution.

On Tuesday, the Westwood single mother received her honors medal with her 6-year-old son, Michael, at her side.

Following four years of late nights studying at Borders bookstore after spending long hours working as a bookkeeper and putting Michael to bed, Rabiei will graduate with a psychology degree.

“I think this is beautiful,” she said. “I am so happy to be in the United States. I feel so blessed.”