If you want to find Devin Gunawan, just “look for the guy who is always smiling.”

That’s according to Tacoma Robinson, International Student Admissions and Advising coordinator at Georgia Perimeter College’s Dunwoody Campus. Gunawan, she says, is always ready and available to assist other students.

A regular volunteer in the International Peer Assistant (IPA) program at the college and an “Ask Me” volunteer for the college’s Customer Service office, Gunawan—a pre-engineering student—also has been asked to serve on the college’s 50th anniversary planning committee. 

It’s no big deal for him to help others, Gunawan says. He was once in their shoes and knows what it’s like to be overwhelmed. The Indonesia native arrived in Atlanta a year ago to enroll at GPC. He was just 17 years old and away from home for the first time.

For any freshman, college looms a little scary and unknown; for a shy young man from a foreign country, that experience was magnified, he says.

“When I came here, I was like a deer in the headlights—I didn’t know where to go, I didn’t know where the Compass test was,” he says. Thanks to an IPA student, he found where he needed to go.

Gunawan is among more than 500 international students from nearly 150 countries at the college. As an F-1 (non-immigrant student with a visa), he was introduced to the International Peer Assistant program during orientation and joined the program immediately.

 Gunawan’s experience in IPA has helped him come out of his shell. “Before I came here I was quite introverted; but once I entered IPA, I just exploded,” he says.

Now in its 13thyear, the IPA program was created to build stronger relationships with international students, teach leadership skills and “bridge the gap” between students and administration before problems arose, says Veronique Barnes, director of the International Student Admission and Advising office.

“We are fortunate to have students like Devin in the program,” Barnes says. “These are students who really care about the well-being of other students and are willing to give of their time to help new students have a better experience with GPC. I’ve seen students very shy coming into the program, and they end up college senators; it’s rewarding to see them grow and develop into leaders.”