When Stony Brook University first-year student Sofia Villacis moved into her dormitory Monday, she got help from an unusual source: Andrea Goldsmith, the school’s new president.

Dressed in a red-and-white Stony Brook shirt, black slacks and low heels, Goldsmith greeted some of the roughly 2,800 first-year students who started to move in Monday morning ahead of the start of classes next week — and even helped a few of them move into their rooms.

Goldsmith chatted with Villacis about the 17-year-old Queens resident’s plans to major in biology as she carried one of the girl's bags into her dorm. Goldsmith urged her to persist through any tough times, recalling when she almost felt like giving up as an engineering student at University of California, Berkeley.

Sometimes it can seem like peo

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