Phong Nguyen: Changing lives is top priority
Transcript
Phong Nguyen:
My major is in chemical engineering with double minors in pre-medical studies and chemistry. I’ve always had this passion for health-related fields.
[background music]
I want to somehow see my work translate to impact people, to change people life for the better.
To have that chemical engineering aspect as a major and have pre-medical studies, I can focus my future career into biomedical research to come up with invention to have something meaningful, and so about 30 years from now, when I look back, I can say, “Yeah, Phong make something that can save people’s life.”
My family is from Vietnam and I grew up there for 18 years. In my senior year in high school, I applied to school here at the University of Maine. I got accepted. Here I am today after five years.
[crowd singing]
International Student Association is a group of students from all over the world. We have about 200 members and we have weekly events called coffee hour in the North Pod where people get together. We share food and we talk about what we have been doing. It’s a place for people where they feel like they belong and where people that have been here longer than other people can take their hands and help others to assimilate, to experience the American culture.
You want to keep that knee together. That’s good. That’s it. Perfect.
I have been a personal trainer here for the past year. I’m mostly training on a one-on-one basis. The field of fitness has always been important to me. I’ve grown up playing and loving the game of soccer.
One more, captain.
Man 1:
One more, captain.
Phong Nguyen:
I always had a competitive edge in me. To be able to see people, to help people, to see them achieve what they come to me, it brings me joy. To see them struggle through that daily workout, to see them struggle through their challenges to get where they want to be and for me to be a part of their journey, it’s very important to me.
They say my name as their trainer loudly and proudly. This is the most rewarding. Nothing can be exchanged for that experience.
Being here is a blessing for me. I have a good life here. I get to know people from different cultures. It’s opened up my perspective. My experience working with the International Student Association with Res Life, to be on campus, it gave me the idea that everyone here has their values and tradition embedded in them.
It take time and effort for us to understand to learn from these people and it has widened my knowledge. It keeps me open minded, and helped me grow so much and learn so much, not only academically, but personally, socially and politically.
For next year, I have been accepted to the Department of Biomedical Engineering at University of Rochester, so that’s where I’m going to do my bioresearch and get my Ph.D. degree in the next five years.
My ultimate goal would be come back to Vietnam and see, again, the impact I will bring on to people, the education and experience I have in here, bring it back, and change peoples lives.