"I was in the Harvard Vietnamese Associationwhen she was a freshman," recalled a friend whospoke on condition of anonymity.

Ho, who was 20 years old at the time of herdeath, was always willing to assumeresponsibilities and tasks for the small clubwithout complaint, according to the friend.

"She was always very forgiving andunderstanding," said the friend, who said Hocontinued to call her to attend meetings evenafter she had stopped coming to some HVA events.

"She organized everything," the friend said."She did most of the gruntwork."

The second friend said Ho was sometimesself-sacrificing to a fault, missing much neededsleep to do work for the club, her majorextracurricular time commitment.

"Sometimes when they were organizing events,she would not sleep. She would be so self-deprivedjust for the events," the friend recollected. "Shewas so worn down, but she continued doing it forthe club."

The first friend described Ho as "alwayscheerful," and the second friend described Ho as"very sweet."

Although Ho rarely mentioned her experience asan immigrant, she became heavily involved with theVietnamese community in the Boston area,volunteering as a tutor for the Refugee Youth TermEnrichment (RYTE) program at Phillips Brooks Houseand teaching English one summer to Vietnameseimmigrants in Dorchester.

She also served as a Dunster House mentor lastfall to incoming sophomores, Braxton J.V. Robbason'97 said.

Ho worked many hours a week at the DunsterHouse library, where her roommate Tadesse alsoserved as a checker, examining students' bags asthey left. Occasionally, the two roommates' shiftswould overlap.

"I had seen them around in the library,"recalled Kusumarn "Kuku" Thammongkol '95, aresident of Dunster F-entryway. "They seemed nice,especially Trang."

Ho's extracurricular commitment carried overinto her academics as well. At first abiochemistry concentrator, Ho switched and becamea biology concentrator her junior year.

The second friend recalled that Ho occasionallyseemed overwhelmed by the magnitude of herschoolwork as a science concentrator, with weeklyproblem sets due and required lab time.

"She was very, very studious...she was a littlebit discouraged, but she was still persistent andshe was taking it easily," the friend said. "Wewere always commiserating with each other."

Ho's goal was to eventually become apediatrician. "She really wanted to be a doctor,that's her dream. She was always a little bitscared she might not get into med school," thefriend said.