Not every media communication student is an aspiring dentist who has joined the United States Air Force. But recent graduate Alondra Kazzouh (25) is not every student. In May 2025, Kazzouh wrapped up her Media Communication B.A. with a concentration in multimedia, plus a cell molecular biology minor.
Kazzouh entered PLNU as a chemistry major, with plans to apply for dental school after graduation. It has always been her goal to be a dentist, especially after hearing about an incident her mother had as a child in which she fell down a steep hill and her teeth were knocked out. Thankfully, her mother had dental work to restore her smile.
“If there wasn’t a dentist present in her life, she wouldn’t have any of these teeth,” Kazzouh said.
This story made an impact on Kazzouh, and since then she has been determined to help people with their smiles.
“Teeth have such a huge [impact],” she said. “If you see a smile with teeth, it’s [more] highly contagious than a smile without teeth.
“Some people don’t smile with their teeth because they are insecure about their teeth. And those insecurities hurt me so much; I don’t know why. I just have this special bond with teeth.”
“Some people don’t smile with their teeth because they are insecure about their teeth. And those insecurities hurt me so much; I don’t know why. I just have this special bond with teeth.”
Kazzouh grew up in the Bay area. Although her family wasn’t particularly tied to the nazarene denomination, she herself attended the New Hope Church of the Nazarene close to where she lived.
“I grew up going to the nazarene church by myself, with my cousins or my sister,” she said. “I never knew what nazarene was, I just knew it was a church that I could walk to. [My parents] wanted us to get more involved in the church.”
She was initially drawn to PLNU due to its smaller size and faith-based community. She knew two people from the church who also attended PLNU.
“The fellowship here — it’s small, so I can focus better around people. There’s not a lot of distractions.”
Amidst her steady dentistry goals, she had academic challenges during her first year. She started college during the COVID-19 pandemic, which impacted her learning as it was mainly online. She found the Chemistry major to be different than she was expecting, and as she explored her future options during freshman year, she enlisted in the air force. In some ways, the air force represented her backup plan if she didn’t get into dental school after graduation.
“I’m the oldest child, so I’m driven to help, and I want to be able to provide support for everyone,” she said. “[In the air force,] I could help the whole nation.”
She went to a military entrance processing station during her Christmas break freshman year, and shipped out May 8 after spring semester without telling any of her friends from school. She said some of the leadership experience she had had on campus was helpful as she started training.
She participated in trial running within the Snake Pit — a table of military training instructors. During this, recruits had to follow a particular method to perfectly present themselves to the table from entry to departure, and ask permission for the flight of recruits to enter the dining facility. This was designed to exercise discipline and the ability to follow orders carefully. If a recruit made a mistake, they had to repeat it again and again until it was perfect.
“They yell at you if you get one word wrong,” she said. “It tests your mental fortitude.”
“I was the first person to perfect it in less time than everyone else. The sergeant came up to me and said, ‘trainee Kazzouh, I wish everyone had the same mentality you have.’ That meant so much to me.”
Because of her successes, they made her tactical deployment leader during their mock deployment exercise. “I was in charge of the whole flight,” she said.
Amidst the victories she had experienced over the summer, she had some trouble adjusting back to student life in the fall. She felt like she had grown a lot in ways that few people could relate to.
“I started sophomore year feeling really good, but I wasn’t the same goofy childish person I was freshman year. I felt like I was different from everyone else.”
Kazzouh remembers a pivotal moment during Time Out chapel when she was praying, asking God for direction — and especially to provide friends that would support and understand her. As she prayed, one of her friends from freshman year reached out to support her.
“I said, ‘[God,] please put the right person in my life,’ and before I knew it, Erica’s hand touched my shoulder,” Kazzouh said excitedly. Kazzouh explained although she initially thought they were too different, Erica ended up being the perfect answer to God’s prayer.
“She was always the one who understood me,” Kazzouh said. “God put her in my life at the right moment.”
“I said, ‘[God,] please put the right person in my life,’ and before I knew it, Erica’s hand touched my shoulder.”
Kazzouh changed her major to media communication wanting to explore an interest in acting — all the while still intending to enter dental school. Throughout college, she participated in internships with Point Loma Smiles and UCSD Dental Clinics. She also added a biology minor her senior year and prepared for her dental admission test to get into dental school. But the acting and media piece was also an important interest for her.
“I took audio production and fell in love with it,” Kazzouh said.
She explained she loved her major so much she had the headspace to focus extra on her science classes. She also said she hopes to one day merge her dentistry goals with her interest in media. Her vision is to create a reality-style show in which she helps people with tough cases or difficult financial circumstances that prevent them from getting dental care.
‘I’d pick people that couldn’t afford it or have been turned down by other dentists,” She said. “I would bring them into my office and say, ‘I can be here for you; I’ll walk you through this — don’t worry about cost.’”
However, she hasn’t waited for that dream to materialize before helping others. At PLNU, she participated in the team Barnabas program, in which she served as a mentor for an international student. She also attended a Spring Break Build.
“It was amazing,” she said. “The people I was working with, the vibes, everything was heartfelt. Everything felt so surreal. This was my first ever mission trip and I thought, ‘I want to do more.’”
Although the students had their phones stowed away during the trip, Alondra was in charge of posting updates on Instagram. At the end of the trip, the students filmed a video for Jeff [Jimenez] thanking him for leading the trip, which they surprised him with shortly after they returned to campus.
“We forget to say thank you sometimes,” she observed, “And I just wanted to make that impression. We were all together, and once we leave it’s just a memory. So having him have that video shows him what an impact he left.”
Throughout her time at PLNU, Kazzouh has striven to be herself while living out her passions in a way that impacts others for the better. Perhaps the best example of this is her involvement in the Middle Eastern Association (MEA), a multicultural club on campus at PLNU.
“I’ve been involved with MEA since freshman year,” she said. “I saw them at the club fair and [thought], ‘oh my gosh, there’s other middle eastern students!’ I started attending the club meetings and really loved it — I attended every one of them.”
Kazzouh explained that although she immediately connected with the group, during her freshman year MEA was pretty removed from middle eastern culture, since most of the leadership grew up in a more americanized culture.
“I was half-raised in Lebanon, and half-raised here,” Kazzouh explained. “I spent the summers in Lebanon, and went to school here.”
“At first I had a rough time fitting in. We’d be learning Arabic the whole time in summer school. I had a really thick accent, it was hard making friends [in America]. My sister has blue eyes and blond hair– the total opposite of me, and her English was really good. I thought, ‘what’s happening with me? What am I doing wrong?”
Because of these experiences, she’s a firm believer in the importance of integration of multiple languages within learning. What was once a struggle for her has now become a key pillar in the perspective she brings to the PLNU campus.
“Integration is really good because it shows cultural awareness,” she said. “That’s why I joined MEA.”
She became an intern with MEA, and planned events like “learn Arabic night” in which participants were able to learn basic words in Arabic. The event involved each student painting on small canvases, which was intended to allow students to practice writing Arabic script, which is written right to left in a cursive style.
“I wanted them to paint words, but [most] people just ended up painting pictures,” she said, with laughter. “I said, ‘O.K., that’s fine too.’”
Other events were collaborations with the Black Student Union and UNITE (Uniting Nationals and Internationals Through Education). As she graduated in May 2025, she’s leaving a new high standard of goal for multicultural events on campus: to bring smiles and draw people closer together through good food, collaborative learning, and enjoyable experiences.
“Our events focus on food and sharing culture. Sometimes people think of the middle east and think about war, that stuff. But we say, ‘no, we’ll bring the middle east to you. We’ll show you hospitality.’”
“Our events focus on food and sharing culture. Sometimes people think of the middle east and think about war, that stuff. But we say, ‘no, we’ll bring the middle east to you. We’ll show you hospitality.’”
