Sunday dinners at Alexandra Dominguez's grandmother's house are a very big deal. Three generations gather to share a meal-and, more importantly, to maintain the camaraderie that keeps a family together.

Now that she's a freshman at Quinnipiac, Dominguez considers her new friends to be her "college family."

Every evening, she rounds up her friends for dinner so that they can catch up on the day, family-style.

"I love all my new friends and I'm sure it will be an intense year," said Dominguez. "I know it will go by in the blink of an eye. College is so different. Friends from high school will always matter, but your friends from college will be the ones in your wedding."

A native of the Bronx, N.Y., Dominguez attended St. Vincent Ferrer, an all-girl, Catholic high school on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

"It still seems weird to have guys in my classroom," she said. "Hamden is so quiet and there aren't many tourists taking pictures of tall buildings here. The air smells fresh and not polluted, and I'm not always running to catch a bus."

A public relations major, Dominguez said she loves people and planning parties. She worked on the prom council at her high school. She enjoys public speaking and sees herself working as an event organizer.

Despite her confidence in the spotlight, Dominguez said she sometimes gets flustered easily. "I'll call my mom and say, 'I don't know how to write this paper,' and she'll say, 'Calm down. Have a cup of tea, and write it!'"

Dominguez also has a close relationship with her grandmother.

"My grandma pampers me too much," she said. "She is a free spirit. She speaks with a strong Spanish accent and tells hilarious stories. She knows how to make me laugh. If I'm upset about something, I go right to her house. We relate to each other," she said.

"She told me to go to college and have fun, but keep my eye on the ball and earn my degree," Dominguez said.

Dominguez serves as a volunteer tour guide and plans to get involved with campus organizations such as Habitat for Humanity. She says she would love to participate in a Quinnipiac-sponsored humanitarian trip to Nicaragua during Spring break, helping poverty-stricken communities.

Dominguez says she is also interested in studying abroad in Italy, Spain, France or Australia. She visited Greece, Rome, Ireland and England while in high school.

"I love meeting new people and experiencing other cultures," said Dominguez, who is of Puerto Rican heritage and speaks fluent Spanish. "We're all people and we're all different, but I love to find the common bond among people."

She applied to the University of Texas-Austin, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Syracuse University and several schools in the State University of New York (SUNY) system.

"Being on the Quad and seeing the mountain was amazing, it took my breath away," she said. "Everyone here is so calm, and I love the small class size. The professors know my name, not my social security number. Faculty members care about you and want to see you succeed. I wanted to be on a close, personal level with my professors."