Passion Projects
I reluctantly shared this method, half-expecting them to laugh. Instead, something shifted. My friends were enjoying these lessons and saying that they now understand the core concepts of each subjects, instead of the normal rote memorisation. And honestly? Watching that click for them felt better than any grade I'd ever gotten.
That's when I started noticing it everywhere. I was surrounded by genuinely intelligent peers who could dissect complex ideas in casual conversation but went completely blank under exam conditions. These weren't students lacking ability - they were students failed by a one-size-fits-all approach to learning.
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LearnThrive started with my stuffed animals. I used to line them up and teach them whatever I was studying—complete with a little whiteboard. Verbalising concepts forces your brain to organise information differently than passive reading ever could - was the most effective revision technique I'd ever stumbled upon. When friends asked me to tutor them
Joining LearnThrive with like-minded peers was equal parts conviction and inexperience. I had strong ideas about active learning and personalized education, but virtually no practical experience in implementing them at scale. The early days were messy. I underestimated nearly everything:the logistics, the resistance to change, how exhausting it would be to build something from scratch while managing my own coursework. There were moments when quitting seemed like the sensible option.
But I kept coming back to those tutoring sessions, to the look on someone's face when a concept finally clicks. That feeling became harder to walk away from than the work was to continue.
LEARNTHRIVE - Board of Management & Lead of Human Resource Department | 2023-Present
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Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics
Junior Researcher - Education & Global Issue Research Department | 2023-Present
In 2021, I joined Vinschool’s GATE Program (Gifted and Talented Education) - a program with an acceptance rate of just 4%. Within GATE, I was selected for the Global Issues Research Track, which opened an unexpected and extraordinary door: a partnership with the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics under the mentorship of Professor Nguyễn Ngọc Dũng. For two years, I had the privilege of learning, researching, and collaborating in a field that, at first, felt completely foreign to me - political education history.
My first major project was an independent research paper titled “The Vietnam Communist Party’s Changing Educational Stance in the Post-war Period,” which was later featured in the National Political Party Journal . I also co-authored two additional papers on the history of education in Vietnam, focusing particularly on the VNEN model - Vietnam’s adaptation of Colombia’s Escuela Nueva -and its eventual shortcomings in implementation.
But none of this came easily.
My Journey
At first, the work was overwhelming. I was suddenly surrounded by graduate researchers and policy experts while I was still figuring out how to read archival documents written in dense, formal Vietnamese. What seemed like a simple task - tracing the Communist Party’s view on education - quickly turned into nights of rereading the same paragraphs, trying to grasp their nuance. I constantly felt behind: Learning research methodology from scratch while balancing schoolwork was exhausting, but it taught me resilience. Yet those struggles became my greatest teachers. I learned to conduct academic research from the ground up—how to ask sharper questions, analyze with precision, and stay open to complexity.
My perspective as a student was an asset, not a limitation: I could connect theories back to lived classroom experiences, offering insights to ensure real-life application of policy reforms
"This was my home where I see"
Translation Kingdom
Published Translator & Board of Management | 2023-Present
This project revealed something unexpected: translation forced me to understand my own culture more deeply. To explain Vietnamese concepts to outsiders, I first had to understand them myself. Why do Vietnamese fairy tales emphasize family duty so heavily? What does the prevalence of shape-shifting characters reveal about Vietnamese beliefs about identity and transformation? I'd grown up with these stories but never analyzed what they meant.
Translation also taught me about cultural humility. I started this project thinking I understood Vietnamese culture because I'm Vietnamese. But culture is complex, contested, and constantly evolving. My understanding of these tales is shaped by my generation, my class, my education. Other Vietnamese people might interpret them completely differently. Learning to hold that complexity—to say "this is one Vietnamese perspective, not the Vietnamese perspective"—made me a better translator and a more thoughtful person.
"Translation taught me that perfection is the enemy of connection. I had to let go of capturing every nuance and focus instead on capturing the feeling—the wonder a Vietnamese child feels hearing these tales for the first time."
My wonder of fairytales came with my grandmother - the woman who told me these stories when I was young and now is helping me with my dilemma. Authenticity vs. Accessibility: how could I make these tales accessible without simplifying them, authentic without alienating readers? She laughed and said something that changed everything: "These stories have been changing for centuries, even within Vietnam. Each grandma has a different alternations to these stories. But the most important part is to Keep the heart and soul of these wonders.