Meet Zod

What sets Hunter College and most CUNYs apart from typical colleges is their position as a collection of commuter schools. There’s no traditional “campus” – no college town, no quad, no typical movie college vibe.

It’s a school of 25,000 housed mainly in three skyscrapers in the hustle of the Upper East Side. Because of this, it doesn’t immediately seem like a friendly environment in which wide-eyed freshmen can instantly make friends and quickly adjust to college life.

In a typical class, students can be newly matriculated freshmen, upperclassmen rushing from one class to a job or internship and then to another class, or retirees. In the rushed environment of Hunter, it could be genuinely hard for a new student to make friends on the spot for the first couple of weeks.

Could be.

Zod goes to Hunter, and he’s making the transition from high school to college easier for the new stock.

I walk onto the West Terrace to sit down and chat with Kevin Zaw, a 20-year old junior studying Economics and Media Studies who goes by “Zod”.

Zod’s standing on a longboard in a group of ten freshmen. It’s only the third week of class, and this cluster of freshmen are already friends – laughing, joking around, and chatting. There are more of these clusters all over the school and surroundings, and it’s a heartwarming thing to see when you think about how Hunter is.

He seems like an unassuming guy when he walks the halls, slightly hunched over, messenger bag swinging, a calm expression on his face.

Except the Hunter 2019 page is littered with photos of him taken by freshmen, both candid photos and snap selfies. He has almost become a symbol of Hunter at this point, and not just for aiding freshmen.

In his sophomore year, Zod was the USG Senator, a Kappa Sigma fraternity brother, and a member of numerous clubs. He would attend almost every event and stay to help clean up, sometimes late into the night. To help clubs promote themselves and capture the events he attended, he taught himself event photography and flyer design.

Last spring, Zod ran for Evening Affairs Commissioner with the Evolution party against United in the USG race.  This was the first race in which two organized parties ran against one other, each with planned platforms and structured campaigns. “Evolution” lost, despite both parties’ platforms being essentially the same.

Kappa Sigma, of which Zod was an active member, is unaffiliated with Hunter this year because of the fraternity scandal at Baruch that left freshman Michael Deng dead and shook up frats all over CUNY.

Zod said: “When I lost USG, I thought this year would suck, I thought this semester would suck for me.

“Because I don’t have USG anymore, Kappa Sigma is not in the school anymore. So, you know, what do I have?”

What first seemed like a bad start to junior year quickly turned into a blessing.

Zod realized he had more free time and had developed connections all over Hunter. He would answer simple questions posted by freshmen on the Hunter 2019 page because it just felt like the right thing to do.

The freshmen loved what he was doing and expressed it on the Hunter 2019 page. They began adding him on Facebook, and were sincerely grateful that someone was actually answering their questions. Zod decided that the best thing to do to repay their gratitude was to organize some meet-ups during the first weeks of school.

The first freshman meet-up in Washington Square Park was modest, with eight freshmen attending.

The next, at Central Park, had 35 attendees.

The third, at the West Terrace, was a pizza party with 85 attendees.

Grinning, Zod said: “Everyone chipped in like five dollars, and we were able to get like ten pies.

“So when we had all those pizza boxes and we put them in the trash can…the next day some of the sanitation people from Hunter looked in the trash can and thought, ‘What the hell happened here?’

“I looked at it and I was like ‘I don’t know what happened’.”

When asked where the name “Zod” came from, he said there were two Kevins in Kappa Sigma, and he didn’t want to be known as the “other” Kevin. He went by his last name – “Zaw” – for a while. He said: “But then there’s this one guy in the fraternity who was wearing headphones, and I told him my name was ‘Zaw’, and he was like ‘Zod’?

“Like Z-O-D?

“And I was like, okay this is more of a name because ‘Zaw’ is kind of awkward to say.”

The name stuck, and he doesn’t go by Kevin anymore. He says that it is an important part of his identity, and finds it very strange – almost angering – when people call him Kevin.

However, now that the crucial first weeks passed, Zod feels that his work is mostly done. The freshmen, though new, aren’t new anymore. They’ve got their groups of friends and have adjusted to Hunter’s college vibe – even though it’s probably not the college vibe they expected.

Hunter is now full of friend groups of freshmen, and it’s truly a happy sight to see.

Unless they happen to be blocking the escalator, of course.

Now, with all of the time freed up for doing what he wants, and with the skills he taught himself in photography and flyer design, Zod is going help any clubs and events he can by offering his skills if they are needed.

Zod didn’t know that aiding freshmen was going to be his thing. He didn’t expect his efforts to be so far-reaching. Yet now he feels as if he has accomplished something. You can see bands and groups and cliques of freshmen who act as if they’ve been in Hunter for years and are familiar with it, despite the way Hunter is.