I learned about the origins of Buddhism this morning and explored a Buddhist pagoda. The pagoda itself was beautifully constructed, with vibrant, saturated colors and elaborate statues and artwork. The temple-goers were reverent during their rituals and respectful towards our group of foreigners. While I found the buildings and rituals themselves to be beautiful, I…

“When everyone is digging for gold, sell shovels.”    It’s an idiom that came from the gold rush, where those selling equipment could have huge, consistent returns as compared to the unreliability of digging for gold.   Similarly, Coherent is capitalizing on new market trends in computer chips and big data by selling large, expensive, and specialized equipment…

Today was our visit to Glass Egg, a company that creates art for some of the largest video game studios in the world. The tour took us through the workspace of hundreds of employees, sectioned off based on the game they were working on. It was cool to see future designs for recognizable titles, games…

In today’s first lecture, Professor Minh spoke to us about sustainable development. It was interesting to see how the discussion is framed in an entirely different way in Vietnam as opposed to the US. Back at home, climate considerations are a politicized issue and are thus very polarized. Some will vehemently disagree and pose as…

We started our day at UEF discussing Vietnam’s agricultural sector in the Mekong Delta region. Our teacher, originally from the Delta region, added a more personal element to a discussion that typically centers entirely on the economics of the area. Immediately after, we had our Vietnamese language class. It was very energetic, loud, and entertaining. Each…

Admittedly, I was nervous before leaving for Vietnam. There was so much that could go wrong in a place far from home. Even for the first night, those nerves persisted. Vietnam felt new; it was different from the US in an undeniable way. Luckily, our partner university, UEF, understood precisely what to do.   The…