Nguyen Doan
City College of New York
160 Convent Ave.
New York, 10031
7/9/2023
Prof. Pamela Stemberg
City College of New York
160 Convent Ave.
New York, 10031
Dear Professor Stemberg,
My name is Nguyen Doan, I am from Vietnam, and I have been living in the U.S. for roughly 5 years. My hobbies are playing video games, listening to music, and reading. My favorite game genres are story-focused and role-playing. I like pop and soft-rock music and I have always wanted to play a musical instrument like a guitar or a piano, but it seems like I don’t have much talent in music.
When I was living in Vietnam, the only achievement I got was studying hard and getting good grades for 9 years continuously. Even though I did not like studying subjects I don’t like and feel uncomfortable about it, it was still a common culture in Vietnam where kids were expected to be raised strictly since they started their first grade, and I don’t feel wrong about that. However, no matter how hard you study in Vietnam, the chance you get a job or be successful after college is very modest, even if you were a top student in your school life. Therefore, I have been grateful for the opportunity to live and work in the U.S.
My biggest challenge when studying in the U.S. has always been the language barrier. Ever since I set foot in the U.S., especially in New York, I understood one of the most critical factors contributing to great success was communication. I didn’t have any struggle in communicating to others in my language, but in English, I lost all my confidence when it came to talking. I could write and text in English normally with friends and my teachers, but it felt awkward when I tried to communicate orally, which made me doubt my abilities a lot. I talked to my family about that problem, and my father suggested me to find a part-time job in order to improve my communication skill. I accepted it and he introduced me to work as a waiter to his boss who owns a restaurant in Manhattan. I worked there during the summer of my freshman year in college. Thanks to that, I noticed my confidence in talking gradually improved, but I still had somewhat hesitation deep inside.
My college life has been relatively commuting, I spent one to one and a half hours traveling by train to the campus. I rarely spent time on any other activities on campus unless I had to. My major is Computer Engineering. I chose to become an engineer because I liked working mechanically around computer systems. The greatest achievement I had in this field was being able to research each of the computer’s hardware and assemble them into a synchronous system. I have many goals for this major, mostly for personal interest, but I want to build a smart home as well as a server of my own without any help. I think this would help me to broaden my knowledge about servers and workstations, which have always been crucial to every company. This goal may seem small to others, but to me, in order to achieve great success, I must take one small step at a time.
Sincerely,
Nguyen Doan
