A Lifetime of Wandering: Catching up with Alumna Vy Nguyen (‘11)

Vy, what’s new?

 I am in Gurgaon, India right now living with a host family and going to Amity International School to learn Hindi for 6 weeks.

How did you find out about the India program? How did you fund the trip? Do you have any advice for our Scholars on how they can do something similar? 

The program I'm with is called National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y). It is funded by the department state under AFS (American Field Service) an organization that specializes in traveling aboard. The program is a full scholarship given by the department of state, and their goal is to increase cultural awareness for American youth by teaching them languages not typically taught in school.
For the Wandering Scholars, I advise you to be on the lookout for as much traveling opportunities as you can. The moment I came back from my trip to Senegal, I thought about the places I would love to travel to - India was my first choice. As a result, I went on google search, and I found NSLI-Y - the application process took about a month, and it started in October - however it was totally worth it. Keep your eyes open, apply for more than one program and many options of traveling will be presented to you. In addition, do not let money stand in your way. Living in the US - there are so many scholarships out there to travel abroad.

How did being a Wandering Scholar prepare you for this journey?

By being a Wandering Scholar, I had full awareness about the differences in culture, people, and lifestyle I was about to go through in India. In addition, I knew that I am a global citizen and representing the US in the best possible way I can. Especially through my trip to Senegal last year by being Wandering Scholar, I was familiar with the feeling of culture shock and being homesick, however - the feeling of being absolutely blessed and grateful for what I have at home when I come to terms with the lifestyles of people in India and Senegal.

Tell us more about Imagine EducAfrica, the organization you have started. What are the next steps for you in terms of getting it off the ground? 

Imagine EducAfrica is an organization that I started with 3 of my friends at school with the help of Youth Ventures (they provided us financial and business support). After coming back to the US, I realize how much opportunities I have to give back to people less fortunate than me. Especially to the village of Dindefelo - living with a host family for 2 weeks there and helping build a library there. I realize that they needed volunteers to help build the library, so how can they provided books for it? Then I came up with an idea to help sparked this goal of providing books and school supplies to the village with making mancatchers. In hopes of making those mancatchers, we hope to spread out our organization and about Dindefelo, and the culture of Senegal a bit with the history of mancatchers. The mancatchers, we hope to give out and in return have a small donation from people who would like to have one. With those donations, we wanted to send it to Hassan (leader in Senegal) so he would be able to buy books and school supplies for the village. As summer begins to end, we're planing to contact Youth Ventures again, and hope to raised at least 500 dollars to send to Senegal.

What are your plans for after graduation? Are you applying to colleges? Considering a gap year? 

My plans after graduation is to apply for colleges, I hope to have admission in Santa Clara or Northwestern University. I do not have a major I am positive I would like to study in, but I'm leaning towards travel journalist or travel photography and a minor in the French Language. But I do know that I would like to major in foreign relations and have the options to travel more in college. I am considering joining Peace Corps after receiving my degree.

Is there anything else you’d like for us to know?

As being students in America, I encourage everyone to take the initiative to travel, even if traveling isn't your thing - just taking a two week program to a different country is a life changing experience. You will learn so much in just two weeks, and realize how different everybody lifestyle is. In addition, we're so lucky to have so much traveling program that offer full ride scholarships, so please take this opportunity while you can. Because after living in Senegal and India for a while, I spoke to many students like myself who would love to have programs like this available in their country. Chase the opportunities that are available in America while you can, I cannot stress this enough.