Last Tuesday, America was introduced to yet another NYU student-turned-dropout: Collin McLoughlin. But unlike our gals M.K. and Ash, this former Steinhardt graduate student chose to leave to pursue his dreams on NBC’s “The Voice.”

“I just needed a chance to try to go out and live a dream cause this is the only chance in my life I could ever really go do it,” McLoughlin said in an interview with Wetpaint Entertainment. “And if I didn’t do it now, I’d spend the rest of my life looking back and saying what if I’d just really gone for it? Could I have really done it?”

His  intuition served him well. Last week, McLoughlin’s quasi-soulful rendition of Cat Steven’s “Wild World” earned the approval of judges Cee Lo Green, Blake Shelton and Adam Levine. (Christina Aguilera pursed her lips as usual, opting not to turn her chair around.)

Although McLoughlin had only one year left to finish his Masters in Music Business, it seems he might have made the right decision. After all, Levine claimed in the blind audition that McLoughlin is “one of the purest singers” he’s heard on the show thus far.

For years, McLoughlin has been praised for his original electro vocals. With lyrics accompanying beats from DJs like Madeon to Tim Berg, McLoughlin is strikingly talented. Take one look at his smiling, necklace-adorned self and you might mistake him for a country star on the rise.

So, what does this mean for future stalking prospects? Will we ever see NYU’s brown-eyed Backstreet Boy again? According to McLoughlin, “I never said that I was going to be done with school permanently.”

Whew. The Voice airs Monday at 8 p.m. on NBC. It features CeeLo stroking a parrot.