As we prepare for the start of the 2026–2027 academic year, the Cooper community welcomes its incoming class of students to campus. We spoke with a few of these new arrivals and asked them to share their stories. Alicia Hough, Thanat Singhirunnusorn, Alex Shoumer, Brandon Yun, Jenascia Fernandez, and Rachel Szeto told us what brought them to Cooper, what they’re most looking forward to once the semester gets underway, and how they’ve spent their summer.
 

Alicia Hough
Palos Verdes, California 
Architecture

Whether I was performing cello in my school’s symphonic orchestra, competing on hip-hop dance teams, or doodling in my free time, I was constantly drawn to multidisciplinary creative expression. In high school, I developed my visual-art practice through competitions, portfolio work, and serving as president of my school’s National Art Honor Society chapter.

My trajectory shifted when a friend let me borrow their edition of 20th-Century World Architecture: The Phaidon Atlas. I became engrossed in its floor plans, structural diagrams, and depictions of how architecture responds to different cultures and landscapes. Architecture crystallized the connection between my artistic instincts and my affinity for mathematics, physics, and engineering. I’m fascinated by its ability to transform an abstract idea into a space that shapes how people move, gather, and live.

An art teacher first introduced me to Cooper, describing its architecture program as exceptionally rigorous, intimate, and distinctive. The month-long Studio Test initially seemed daunting, particularly without any promise of admission, but I was compelled by the challenge.

Its unconventional prompts demanded experimentation and pushed me beyond my usual modes of thinking. After I was accepted, visiting Cooper made my decision clear. The close-knit cohort, singular curriculum, spirited community, and creative energy of New York felt unlike anything I had encountered elsewhere. I left knowing Cooper was where I belonged.

I’m eager to immerse myself in the intensity of studio: constructing intricate models, testing ambitious designs, and learning to reconcile creative vision with structural and environmental realities. I’m especially interested in sustainable design and hope to contribute to research in the Building Design Collaborative.

I’m immensely excited to grow within such a small, tight-knit cohort! I am eager to discover how close collaboration will allow us to challenge, inspire, and learn from one another throughout our time at Cooper.

Coming from Los Angeles, I’m also excited to exchange the spaciousness of the West Coast for the density and dynamism of New York. I want to absorb the city’s layered architecture, diverse communities, and ceaseless movement; and discover how they rekindle my perspective as a design-oriented thinker.

This summer, I traveled through South Korea, Singapore, Canada, the Dominican Republic, and Hawaii. From participating in a mission trip in the Caribbean to exploring the dense urban landscapes of Asia, I encountered radically different cultures, communities, and built environments. I also watched more than 30 films, continued pursuing my love for music and visual art, all while sharing plenty of good food and goodbye outings with friends before college.
 

Thanat “Thomas” Singhirunnusorn
Huntsville, Alabama
Art

I was born in Bangkok, Thailand. After a few years, my family immigrated to the United States. We lived in South Caroline for a little bit, and then we moved to Huntsville, Alabama, where I grew up. I would say that I’m from Huntsville, Alabama, but as an immigrant, I’m from both Huntsville and Bangkok.

My high school offered STEM magnet programs in computer science, engineering, and biomedical science, but I was interested in art the most because of the freedom it offers. The art classes I took introduced me to various media and would eventually lead to a research-based process. I would often compare the process of creating art to playing soccer. In soccer, you can do anything you want with the ball as long as you have the ideas and the will to bring them to life. This love of bringing your ideas from the fields of endless possibilities into reality made me want to learn more about art.

I began my undergraduate experience at the Kansas City Art Institute for two years. After my foundation year, I attended an arts residency, Arts Letters & Numbers, which was recommended to me by my professor and where I was able to take part through a work-study scholarship and savings from my part-time job. My experience there was incredible and inspired me to apply as a transfer student, since most of the program had connections to Cooper. As I was waiting for my application results, I found out I had to potentially drop out of school due to financial concerns. I was very lucky and grateful to have been accepted and supported by Cooper, as the amazing financial aid is the reason why I’m able to continue my education. I had a wonderful time at the Kansas City Art Institute and had some amazing professors—SK Reed, Sia Joung, Noelle Choy, Adams Puryear, Corey Antis, and many others—who made my experience all the more remarkable and special. I hold onto the memories I made in Kansas City very dearly, bringing them with me to New York.

This year, I’m most looking forward to playing soccer! Apart from my studio practice, soccer has always been just as important. It’s an amazing feeling when the ball touches your feet, and everything negative in the world disappears. I’m also looking forward to spending time with all my friends who live in New York and to meeting my fellow transfer students. In general, I’m looking forward to being in a city that a few months ago was just a crazy dream. I’m excited to get back into working after a long summer vacation.

Over the summer, I attended a faculty-led travel program to New York City, where I visited a variety of art institutions and galleries. I was also able to see the Knicks win the NBA Finals and watch the FIFA World Cup. I’ve been working as much as possible to pay for rent and groceries during the school year. I also went through the hellish process of finding an apartment in New York and was very lucky to have found one. Apart from navigating the process of moving to New York, I’ve been catching up on reading and relaxing as much as I can.
 

Alex Shoumer
Wayne, Pennsylvania
Engineering

My engineering journey truly started at age five, when I spent much of my free time building with LEGO. Throughout elementary and middle school, I developed a deep love for math and science, but I knew I wanted to pursue something more creative that would allow me to combine the two. Fortunately, in high school, I had an amazing STEAM teacher who introduced me to the world of engineering. She became my mentor throughout high school and showed me not only how creative and versatile engineering could be, but also that it was possible for a woman to build an exciting and meaningful career in the field. I was drawn to the idea of using creativity and technical problem-solving to design solutions with a tangible impact on the world.

I always knew I wanted to attend a small school with a strong sense of community. I looked at several liberal arts colleges, but many either did not have an engineering program or required students to spend their first two years completing core requirements before diving deeply into their major. I also grew up as a competitive dancer, surrounded by artists and other creative people, so I knew I wanted to be in an environment that valued creativity even while pursuing a technical field. Cooper stood out to me because it offered the close-knit community, rigorous engineering education, and creative atmosphere I was looking for.

I’m especially looking forward to getting involved in Cooper’s student organizations, particularly the Vertically Integrated Projects program. I’m excited about the opportunity to gain hands-on engineering experience, collaborate with students across different years, and apply what I’m learning in the classroom to real projects. I’m also looking forward to becoming part of Cooper’s community and exploring interests outside of engineering through clubs and other activities.

I had a bit of an extended summer because I took a gap year, which gave me the chance to explore new places, interests, and ways of living. I spent three months traveling through Peru and Bolivia, where I trekked, stayed with local communities through homestays, and experienced cultures very different from my own. I also completed a yoga teacher training, traveled solo through Japan and Korea, and lived in France for two months while studying pâtisserie and French. I’ve spent the summer working at a plant store and as a camp counselor teaching dance. More than anything, though, this year gave me the opportunity to meet and learn from people from all over the world, hear perspectives different from my own, and become more independent and open-minded.
 

Brandon Yun
Norwood, NJ
Architecture

Originally, I thought architecture would be a more “practical” alternative to pursuing art. Something that could pay the bills, satisfy my mom, but also allow me to continue exploring art, just in a different form of expression. That sort of mindset gently shoved me into an architecture class in the second year of high school, where I learned that architecture was a lot more expressive than just “art with math.” There is, of course, a practical engineering and structural component to it, but that is part of a grand mosaic that I came to find so equally beautiful and challenging. Architecture is now a language I love to use to think about the world, and I want to develop a unique voice in that language that expresses not only who I am, but what I want the world to become. I see that through architecture the world doesn’t just have to be inspiration; rather, it can become a canvas for my ideas to support a future of homes and sustainability.

Cooper Union actually flew under my radar for a while. It was just kind of a school I would briefly hear about as I researched architecture programs during college applications, but my art teacher was the one who ultimately encouraged me to look deeper into it, with a lot of enthusiasm. I ended up researching the school for hours on hours, and I found myself so deeply intrigued by Cooper. It went against many norms of typical colleges with things like the architecture studios, the dorms, the faculty, and the number of architecture students. Of course, learning about the rather small number of students was startling, to say the least. I was a bit pessimistic about getting in, so I took the hometest just for the sake of trying, and I was blown away by how beautifully challenging it was. Those prompts that each question posed appeared so simple at a brief glance but offered such diverse variety in its possible responses that I began to really understand what Cooper strives for, and I am more than grateful that I have the opportunity to now attend the school.

At first, I was going to say, “having NYC as my campus” is what I’m most looking forward to, because NYC really is just a fantastic source of inspiration, but there’s something more exciting than that. I am both nervous and eager to meet my fellow first years at Cooper, and I want to know all about their perspectives on architecture and art. How deep their love or even hate of the discipline might go, and all the fascinating directions that we can share among one another as we progress through Cooper. Cooper has built up a reputation for culturing a unique, almost symbiotic sort of relationship that pushes each student to expand their views and skills within the art of architecture. Some freshmen have made a group chat that I’ve managed to end up in, and the backgrounds that everyone comes from are so unfamiliar to me. I am very excited to meet them.

Over the summer, I’ve mostly been helping out my mom with gardening and tutoring some middle schoolers in English and math, which has been immensely rewarding and also quite frustrating in the funniest of ways. Beyond that, I’ve been frequently biking, going to the gym, and playing video games like Stardew Valley and Dead Cells. I also went on a mission trip to Ventanilla, Peru with my church, Chodae Community Church. We helped out the locals with medicine, checkups, and even a brief English camp to hopefully generate some interest in studying the language.
 

Jenascia Fernandez
Queens, New York
Art

From a very young age, I found myself loving to create. I had standard art classes that required a visual art textbook and lots of activities. From there, I asked my parents for painting supplies, and I would paint all the time while watching tutorials. Bob Ross was my favorite by the way. For years, this passion grew along with my art skills, and after a while, I discovered that I was pretty decent. That’s when I realized art was something I was willing to pursue, so I attended a high school where I was an art major. I would not have attended this school if my art teacher himself hadn’t referred me. It’s pretty funny, given it’s almost the same experience I had in terms of applying to Cooper Union. There, I grew a lot as an artist and knew I wanted to do it for the rest of my life, even if I didn’t study it in college.

At the start of my senior year, I was completely against the idea of going to college for art, as I had already been going to an art high school. Besides art, I had a passion for psychology and forensics, so I wanted to go to college to study those fields. Little did I know, a day would come when I decided not to go to school, but my mom, for the first time, told me to get up and go. I went to school that day not looking forward to anything at all, until my art class came along. Two faculty members from The Cooper Union School of Art came in to present and did portfolio reviews with us. My mind had never been changed faster. I completely fell in love with what the school offered and was advised during a one-on-one review to apply through early-decision. At first, I was really conflicted, but ultimately couldn’t resist. After that, my entire trajectory changed, and now I’m working toward bigger things in art itself.

I have always been someone who finds joy in trying new things in order to keep an open mind and not limit myself. I am super excited to work with various art materials and create things that are outside of my artistic norm and comfort zone. Experiencing these different forms of creativity and trying new materials will expand my knowledge and abilities, and that is what I look forward to the most.

Over the summer, I’ve been catching up and spending time with family abroad. It’s not very often I get to do so over an extended period of time. Therefore, it was very important to have made the most of it and enjoy their company in every way possible.
 

Rachel Szeto
Townsend, Delaware
Engineering

Computer science to me was like love at first sight. Ever since my first coding class in middle school, I was immediately hooked and knew this was what I wanted to do. I remember feeling such a strong passion that I had spent so many hours on the family computer, coding and making random projects. Even today, I still do that. There’s something about the creative side of coding that I love; I’ve always been an artsy person, and through coding I’m able to express both the logical and imaginative sides of myself.

I first learned about The Cooper Union from my cousin; she graduated as an EE major in 2024. I was immediately impressed by the prestige and academic rigor. Furthermore, I was absolutely blown away at their mission toward providing their students with affordable education. At the time, I didn’t consider applying because Cooper didn’t offer my intended major. That was until last year, when the computer science program was implemented. It felt like a sign, and I knew I had to apply.

I'm so excited to get to know my fellow classmates. The small class sizes feel a little daunting, but I think they’ll create a close-knit, supportive community and add a more personalized learning experience. I’ve already met a few classmates who I’m eager to get to know better.

Over the summer, I’ve been working, spending time with friends and family, and enjoying my hobbies: Drawing, reading, and playing tennis. It's been a great way to recharge and spend time doing what I love before the fall semester.