ORONO – Among the roughly 1,860 graduates who will receive their degrees today at the University of Maine are two remarkable young women from two very different cultures. Their academic success has placed them at the very top of the Class of 2008.

Marianne Schneider of Jena, Germany, is the class valedictorian and Anh Hoai Do [name is corrected in text] of Hanoi, Vietnam, is the salutatorian. The designations reflect the students’ stellar grade point averages and the number of courses they’ve taken at UMaine. Both students have perfect 4.0 averages, but Schneider earned the most academic credits.

The two women, both headed for advanced education and promising careers, agreed to be interviewed in the middle of a hectic pre-commencement week.

Graduation ‘bittersweet’

Taking a brief break on Wednesday from a flurry of graduation preparations, salutatorian Do said she’s excited about her immediate future but a bit saddened at the prospect of leaving UMaine, where she has studied for the past four years.

“It’s bittersweet, for sure,” she said. Poised and soft-spoken, Do, 21, will start work on Monday at Sterne Agee, an investment brokerage firm in New York City.

“It’s a 70- or 80-hour-a-week job – pretty intense,” she said, her eyes widening at the thought. She has an apartment lined up in midtown and said she’s looking forward to getting familiar with the city.

Do’s parents both attended college in Russia after the end of the war in Vietnam. Her father is a business consultant who travels regularly throughout Asia and her mother works in telecommunications. She has one brother, Anh Minh Do, who is six years younger than she is.

“Families in Vietnam are not allowed to have more than two children,” she explained. She expects her brother will apply to colleges in the United States, including perhaps the University of Maine.

“I want him to come here, so I can come back to visit him,” she said.

Do first came to the U.S. as a high school exchange student and spent her senior year with a family in Shelburne, Mass. But her college application process took place over the Internet from Hanoi, and she didn’t have an opportunity to visit any schools.

Her interest in UMaine was “a little random,” she admitted – the school “just looked like a nice place.” When she was offered a full four-year tuition scholarship, she didn’t hesitate.

A business administration major with a double concentration in accounting and finance, Do also has been active in the International Student Association, the university’s Office of Multicultural Programs, and an on-campus student investment project. She served in Student Government as vice president for financial affairs and belonged to the All Maine Women Honor Society, Phi Kappa Phi and the National Society of Collegiate Scholars.

“I don’t spend a lot of time studying,” she said. “I give it high importance, but it’s definitely not everything I do.”

Do said she intends to earn a master’s degree in finance. She has been accepted at the University of Cambridge in England and is waiting to hear about financial aid.

Do’s parents and brother were not able to make the trip from Hanoi for her graduation, but her student exchange family from Massachusetts is planning to attend, as well as an aunt and uncle from Boston.

Eastern Germany to UM

Valedictorian Schneider, 23, also was bustling around on Wednesday, excited at the prospect of meeting her parents at the Bangor airport. Her father, a tax accountant, and her mother, a secretary for an agricultural firm, expected to fly in that afternoon, although her younger brother Martin was staying at home to tend to his own academics.

“His school schedule is different,” she said.

Schneider’s family lives in Jena, a city of about 100,000 in what used to be the German Democratic Republic. It is most famous as the original headquarters of the Carl Zeiss company, a manufacturer of scientific instruments, photographic lenses and medical devices. Now a multinational corporation, Zeiss no longer maintains a Jena facility.

“My parents never really had the chance to travel,” Schneider said. “So when the [Berlin] Wall came down [in 1989], they took us to a lot of different places.”

It was that early opportunity that fueled her interest in exploring foreign cultures.

She spent a high school year living with a family in North Dakota and vacationed with them in the Boston area. When it came time to apply to colleges, the University of Maine met her needs.

“It had all the resources of a major university,” she said, “but at the same time it felt like a small liberal arts school.”

In Germany, Schneider said, families must decide early on whether to enroll their children in a 13-year college preparatory program or a 10-year general education program. The decision gets made after fourth grade, and while it is possible to switch tracks, it’s not easy. Students in the college prep track tend to develop very competitive academic habits, she said.

Her own academic ambitions found plenty of stimulation at UMaine.

“I knew I wanted to study international affairs,” Schneider said. “But then I realized economics is really the driving factor.” So she wrapped them together in a double major, as well as completing minors in Canadian studies and French. She has recently begun studying Arabic.

Outside of classes, Schneider was active in the International Student Association and the Honors College. She is a member of the National Society of Collegiate Scholars, Phi Beta Kappa and the international economics honor society Omicron Delta Epsilon.

In June, Schneider will start an internship with the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies in Washington, an affiliate of Johns Hopkins University. In the fall, she will head to the Netherlands for a yearlong graduate program in international economic studies with a focus on European economic policies. After that, she hopes to work with an economic policy institute, or possibly in an academic setting.

She’s drawn to European countries and cultures, but she has a boyfriend in Millinocket. He’s the son of the North Dakota family she stayed with all those years ago, and is now an assistant principal at Stearns High School.

Schneider says she has big ambitions and loves being in school.

“I do,” she said, grinning. “But, then, there also is life.”