Education:
Bachelor of International Business and Management studies, Saxion University of
Applied Sciences
Nationality: Vietnamese
Age: 22
Previous
International Experience: Left Vietnam to live and study in the Netherlands
(besides travelling all around Europe)
Hobbies: music,
movies, photography, reading and especially travelling!
Challenge: None
really. I seize the challenge, life would otherwise be very dull.
Thanks Past for your lessons!
Every time I fail, I see myself in the mirror with
the-most-truthful-me and know where I should go next. If life is simply just
living everyday pleasantly, I’d be bored till death…
I’m a
Vietnamese girl who took the chance to go study in the Netherlands at my (nearly-)
proper 18 years. The 4 year study and experience has changed me into a
completely different person. If you know how contradictory the two cultures are
(in all aspects), you can have a good guess already. Before I came to Holland, I
was a shy, introvert girl and not sure if who I am and what I want. At that
time, this was the outcome of a forceful education, which most of the time
tells you what/how to think and do, as if everyone is the product of a mass
production. I don’t get that way of education a society, thus I longed to step
out of the boundary and find my way of life. Luckily I made it. Looking back at
the whole experience, I’m still happy that I made the right choice. My friends
told me that I’m so active, open-minded and friendly now. I also realize that
I’ve changed a lot, especially after coming back to my home country after the
study. I find myself independent and confident, ignoring random (and often
times misleading) judgment and truly live my own live.
About my career
Well, I had my
first internship in Vietnam working for an NGO as a marketing and fund-raising
intern. It was a great experience working in an environment with full of dedication
and enthusiasm. I saw people having
clear ideas and ideals for what they
were doing (to protect the environment, in
specific); other personal goals were their second
priority. Although an NGO is not an "appropriate"
workplace for my field of study (business),
it gave me valuable lessons about career in return.
After that
internship, I came back to continue the study and felt more inspired in every
subject I learned at school. Unfortunately that’s also the time when my
bachelor study was getting closer to its end. I wasn’t really ready to say
goodbye to my student life when holding the bachelor degree. 4 years have gone
by too fast, but that’s how it is when you spend time doing things you enjoy.
I’m thankful for that.
I conducted my
second internship, which was also my final thesis, not so long ago. That’s the
first time I officially worked in sales, dealing with many different (types of)
people and was able to dive into the business world. My job is to find
customers for an export company in Holland, so there’re a lot going on with
cultural differences and barriers. It’s a combination of stress and excitement
at the same time. I decided to continue with this job in Vietnam after graduate
and have been doing it for a couple of months now. There are pros and cons to
the job’ insight, but I don’t think I will be settled with this job in the
long-run. I believe young people should experience as much as they can before
become settled with a life-long job.
My dream is to
establish my own company in future, to design everything myself and to run it
the way I want. The field of business (you can call it mission or ideal) is
still not decided upon (and I will probably need half of my life to finally
find the one thing that I burn for). The size of the company is not a matter at
all. As long as I see the meaning in everything I do, I can spend my whole life
for it, I believe so.
Dear Future, I’m curious!
Now
that you know a lot about my past (the lessons that I've learned or the
personal progress that I've made) and my present, I can look forward to the
future now. If I would really have the chance to talk to Mr. Future, I would
have a thousand questions for him. But if he answers them all, I don’t think I
need to wake up the next day. So dear Mr. Future, thanks for not coming to
answer my questions. I’ll move ahead to see everything myself and ,most
importantly, to live and treasure everyday I’m given.
