My Starting Point: From Doubt to Curiosity

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In my final year of high school, I was a math-track student surrounded by ambitious classmates. All of us aimed for Vietnam’s top universities. In my extended family, my cousins had already secured spots in the most prestigious schools in the country. But I became the first one who didn’t make it into that circle. Instead, I entered a university through my second-choice application.

At that moment, I felt disappointed and questioned myself. Growing up in a provincial town, life was not lacking, but studying abroad felt like something reserved only for wealthy families and students with excellent foreign language skills. English was not strongly emphasized at my school, so for me, the dream of studying abroad was just a fleeting spark - never a realistic plan.

After graduation, I found a good job and thought my life would follow a stable path: career growth, marriage, and continued development in Vietnam. And that would have been wonderful, of course. Yet deep down, I sometimes wondered: How are things working in other countries?

That curiosity led me to my very first trip abroad - to Taiwan. At that time, I didn’t even have a passport. But compared to the distant idea of studying overseas, traveling abroad suddenly felt achievable. I was financially independent, so I told myself: If I can work and earn, surely I can travel too.

That trip planted a seed of possibility. It was the first step toward a future I had never dared to imagine.

 

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