ABOUT ME
Alright, so I'll will be going over my life in a nutshell. To start off, my dad is a Vietnamese refugee who had to travel to America because of the Vietnam War in which the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (Northern Vietnam) took over the State of Vietnam (Southern Vietnam). He then worked in America for decades and during one of his vacation trips to Vietnam he met his lover their (my mom). They married each other and then had a child (me) so I was born in March 8, 1998 in Gò Công (town district) Tiền Giang (province) Vietnam. Later on, my dad would move the family over to his house in America so I came to America when I was around two-years-old. We lived in a house in Sacramento and life was pretty relaxing. My dad and mom would then have another child so I became the oldest brother in the family.
However, the relaxing life would soon come to an end, the economy was not looking so well and stuff happened in 2008. We then moved down to Southern California in hopes of starting over and we would move from house to house depending on the rent price. I remembered having to go to like five different elementary schools since we moved often. However, that did not hinder my motivation and progress in going towards higher education since I read and studied from books I borrowed from the local library/school library since I did not have access to my own personal computer back when I was a kid. The only time my family did not move to another house and I was able to complete my education was in Jr. High School. I went to Orangeview Junior High School and I remembered how I would often compete with my friends to see who has the highest accelerated reader scores. Looking back on it now, I think that was what helped me understood the English language better since I was not much of an extrovert and my first language was Vietnamese not English. So in a way I was able to quickly cover my weakness in my English skills by reading, reading, and reading. This ability to adapt to new situation is what allowed me to survive up till now.
After Jr. High School I went on to attend Cypress High School where I learned more about Trigonometry, Algebra, Kinematics, Centripetal Force, Pre-Calculus, Discrete mathematics, and etc. we had to learn in high school. I finished most of my math courses there and was pretty arrogant as a kid since I studied a lot and knew the information by heart. I was a perfectionist back then so I am certain if you had asked me questions about anything related to math I would have been able to answer it in a hearth beat. However, my ego would end when I enter my Senior year at a different school, because I kind of matured in life realizing that being know-it-all is not what life is all about. I realized I needed to support my family by working hard, not sit there and boast about everything, because at the end of the day, hard work is what earns achievement.
When my family had to move again because of financial situation we moved down to Westminster (where I am currently living). When we moved I had to switch to a different school once again, I only had art courses and other general educations left so I was not too worried. Still, I was kind of discouraged since, ounce again, I had to move and moving around causes social restructure since there are different people you have to talk to and new friends to be made. Still, my time at La Quinta High School got me thinking more about life and its meaning. I felt kind of like I was in a philosophical phase around that age since I was pondering about what major to choose in college/university once I graduate high school, why people were the way they were, and if I were to grow up what would I be happy with in life. You know, all those kind of things you ask yourself from time to time. Thinking back on it now, I feel kind of embarrassed about it but whatever, that's all in the past.
During this time, my parents had another child so now I was the oldest brother to two younger brothers. To me it felt kind of weird because now I am like a decade older than my youngest brother. Since our age gap is so huge I did not know what to do and kind of questioned about what I should do. That further made me ponder more about life's meaning and my purpose in life. Eventually, I copped with the situation and all went well. In a way, during this philosophical phase I was having helped me to become more mature.
After the philosophical phase I went through for my senior year of high school I decided that I wanted to earn a bachelor degree in science, have zero debt when I graduate, study something in the field of computers since I was interested in the way computer operated, and it would have to be a school near me so that I would not stress my family out financially with transportation. So, in the end that lead me to the school where I am currently at today, California State University of Long Beach. When I entered the university I was prepared to sign up to be a pre-computer science undergraduate student. Like, I was super excited to be a computer science student, you know the feeling you get when you earn a present you really wanted in years? That was the feeling I got when I signed up for the major. It was something I planned for in my early life and I finally reached one of my life's goal.
However, there was a great risk involved with taking computer science as my major. Like, I was one of those student who had zero experience with programming yet wanted to learn more about it. I had no other reason to explain why I picked it other than that I had a passion for learning more about how the operating system worked, how data were managed, and then how they were displayed on the screen. So looking back on it now, I took a huge risk in signing up for the major with little to no programming background. Long story short, I studied arduously because I was at a disadvantage compared to my other colleagues. These other students knew how to code in python, c++, c#, java, and etc. so they were super quick in learning what was taught at the university. To catch up I had study night and day, waking up till 5 AM some weeks just to finish a project in time because, as I stated above, I was learning everything from scratch.
A problem I faced my freshman year was that some of the students I was with my freshman year were arrogant so it made it harder to study since they acted like know-it-all (which kind of reminded me of my sixteen-year-old self) and did not study at all, in fact, they partied a lot so it kind of hinders time of study. Their unmotivated personality just made me kind of lazy in a way but I tried my best to ignore those people and went on to make friends with more motivated people in school. This in a way helped me be on track for the four-year graduation, me and my friends would start study groups and studied for exams together in order to pass the courses. Furthermore, because of the problem I faced I was able to overcome it and it helped me to understand more about the power of team-work and how much faster it is to learn in a group than alone. I learned better communications skills and eventually that helped me in some of my classes' group projects. If I had never gone to the university I would have probably been more of an individualist in life.
Another problem I faced while I was starting out my freshman year was a wealth and social disadvantage. Since I was not from a wealthy family, my dad recently bought me an iPhone when I went to college and since I have never used phones before getting into the university I was kind of socially awkward when it came to communicating via phone. But, because I never really had a phone before, I was not really influenced by social media so it was good in a way as I was not addicted to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and etc. people are addicted to nowadays because of social engineering from social media companies. Even so, seeing as I was majoring in Computer Science, I quickly sought to learn how to use social media by asking my friends here and there, learned more about SMS, and more applications on the phone so that I may master my major. I quickly turned my disadvantage into and advantage by learning everything in one year. I was the master of using a phone, although, I probably shouldn't be boasting about it since it is kind of embarrassing that it took me this long to figure them out.
During my sophomore year I got some scholarship from STEM and Albertsons so that kind of solved my financial issues. I bought myself a reliable personal computer and started coding some pretty cool stuff during my second year. I used android studio to create an application for the android device with my team but one problem I faced was trying to figure out how to store and gather the data, seeing as we did not learn SQL before (it's taught during the third year). So, we made our own database using three dimensional array list with java, and the application ran perfectly at the end. It was portable display of the Hillside's, Beachside's, and Parkside's dining menu. In the app the user would be able to see what would be on the menu on today's date, have a map, and select the specific date they would like to see. All of this feature would be accessible on a portable android device and the user interface was easy enough that a five-year-old child would probably be able to scroll through and select items from it.
Finally, I reached my first semester of my junior year. During this year, I learned less about programming and more about computer science. One of my professor would conceptualize to us that computer science is not all about programming, else we would just need to join a weeks worth of coding boot-camp and know how to code. So I thought to myself, "Yeah, she's right, I never really thought about that, but she's right". I started to use some calculus equations I thought I would never had to use again. We had to use series, derivatives, and integrals to solve the running time of some computer programs. During that time I was thinking to myself, "I wished I didn't forget those equation, now I gotta learn em again" so I quickly searched through my closet to find my notes from way back in my freshman year. This was the "most grindy" semester in my opinion as I was starting to implement math into programming. Furthermore, I also had to work with user interfaces and integrate it with my code for some class projects. I pulled a lot of all-nighters and burned the mid-night candle for this one section of the year.
Eventually, with time, I made it all the way to my junior year after all those early years of arduous work. I have become wiser than I was in the past, more mature, and learned the languages I didn't knew my freshman year. I am still on track to graduate in four years and am now in the stage of thinking about what to do for next year and what to do after graduation...