Daniel Kangas first saw America as a teenage exchange student in Ohio. In his eyes, it was the true Midwest, “rural, poor, conservative, religious.” It was also an experience he says he’ll always treasure. Kangas’s route to New York and Baruch was circuitous, to say the least.
After completing high school in Stockholm, he spent some time wandering through Southeast Asia with a friend, who stayed on to become a Buddhist monk. Kangas might have done the same, but instead he returned home and put in two years at the University of Stockholm studying literature and linguistics. Then it was on to New York and the Fashion Institute of Technology. There, he spent another two years, in what he now considers a misguided attempt to combine fashion and business.
Eventually, Kangas made it to Baruch, where he’s a fabulously busy person. “I wanted to take 20 credits, but they closed the courses while I was waiting for permission,” he says. Though he’s majoring in finance, Kangas is enamored of liberal arts—at their most cutting edge: film history and theory, cultural anthropology, media studies, gender studies. Many Baruch students would groan, but Kangas’s eyes light up. He carries a book with him at all times. Relishing the paradox, he quips, “I’m finally so busy that I have time to read.” When not immersed in course work, Kangas juggles two internships: one at UBS PaineWebber Investment House, the other at HedgeCo, a marketing firm. He’d like to make lots of money “so I can retire and be a philanthropist.” A free spirit, Kangas adores New York City, his adopted home. But he thinks he’s still Swedish in many ways. “I’m extremely glum and self-critical,” he observes. But he hides it well.

—ZB