Meet Tien and Learn How a Cup of Starbucks Coffee Determined His Major.

Choosing a major in college can be difficult. There are different factors that can influence this decision, like instructors, personal interests, or potential earnings after graduating.

However, for Tien Nguyen, a California State University, Long Beach senior economics major, a push from family members and a cup of Starbucks coffee is what led him to his major.

Nguyen says his higher education journey began when his parents encouraged him to make the move from “rainy” Vietnam to “sunny” California so he could receive a college education in the U.S.

After settling in Southern California in 2015, Nguyen enrolled in Orange Coast College (OCC), located in Costa Mesa, one year later.

One day, while Nguyen was an OCC student, he bought a cup of coffee from Starbucks and started to wonder why Starbucks chose to sell a cup of coffee for $5 instead of another price, like $7 or $8.

“It makes sense for me to think of these types of questions because my family is really business-oriented,” Nguyen says. “My dad, for instance, is a realtor and invests in real estate. So I talked to my family about this question, and then my brother suggested for me to look into economics.”

Nguyen considered his brother’s advice and decided to enroll in an economics course at OCC.

“The course helped me understand human behavior and explain some of the everyday situations I see in life,” Nguyen says. “Some of the things I learned are about how companies decide how to hire a certain amount of employees, how optimal prices are determined, and how businesses try to figure out how to maximize their profits.”

The more Nguyen learned from that class, the more he realized that he wanted to explore the subject. As a result, he decided to make economics his major.

When Nguyen’s time with OCC was coming to an end, he started looking at universities to transfer to. He ultimately decided on CSULB because that university’s economics department was under the College of Liberal Arts. “This appealed to me because I felt that having the department under the College of Liberal Arts – instead of, say, a business college – will allow me to focus primarily on economics instead of having to take some business classes, too,” Nguyen says.

Since making that decision, Nguyen is now a tutor for CSULB’s Department of Economics and is on the executive board of the Economics Student Association as a public relations coordinator. Nguyen says he appreciates his positions because it gives him the opportunity to interact with the professors and the CSULB community.

Nguyen’s goal after completing his undergraduate is to move on to a Ph.D. program that focuses on the theory of economics and econometrics. Once he completes his Ph.D., he hopes to return to Vietnam part-time to help his home country improve its economy and to teach economics. However, he also wants to remain in America part-time as a data analyst and an economics instructor. Nguyen says it would be “too boring” to live in just one country.

For prospective and current students, Nguyen has this advice to offer: “The purpose of academia is to maximize the profits, not minimize the costs. In other words, those who avoid taking hard classes because they think they will not get an A is an act of minimizing a cost. Yes, they’ll have to work harder, but those classes can lead to a great deal of knowledge and exposure to amazing professors. Just think of it like brain gymnastics.”

Written by Ruben Diaz and Kira Hall