The Cat Lai Terminal welcomed us with the sweet sounds of commerce. Trucks and creaking shipping containers accompanied the intense heat. We learned about the port’s capacity and expansion plans. Vietnam’s rapid growth puts major stress on ports as they struggle to keep up with the volume of shipping traffic. Cat Lai has to expand…

Our morning today focused on Buddhism. It was peaceful and very interesting to hear about Buddhism’s influence in Vietnam. We visited a Buddhist temple after our class on Buddhism. Our afternoon however, was bloody and deformed. We visited the Independence Palace, which was incredible to see and walk through such historical halls. After the Independence…

Coherent Corp. was our most technical site visit yet, but it was nearly my favorite (I don’t think I should put anything above Vina Capital). Coherent manufactures laser technology, lithography machinery components for indispensable companies like ASML, and semiconductor technologies. Basically, Coherent produces equipment that makes powering AI possible. Coherent’s products are also in your…

Today was definitely the best yet. The amount of insane activities we crammed into one afternoon was unlike anything you could do back home. We started off with our bus ride to the Mekong Delta. For the hour and a half there, we sang our hearts out in karaoke. It was 8:00 AM, and those…

Today started off with our visit to Glass Egg, a game developer and art outsourcing studio. You really didn’t need to be a video game fan to enjoy this visit. It was so cool to see all of the employees in their own comfy workspaces listening to music and drafting supercars, weapons, trees, and characters…

Visiting Vina Capital left us so touched that our typically boisterous group spent the bus ride to lunch seriously reflecting on the difference the organization is making in Vietnam. We all want to be apart of it, and many of us are already seriously considering coming back next summer to intern with Vina Capital. We…

Green development and FPT Software: both actively defining the Vietnamese economy. We started our day with Professor Minh learning about Vietnam’s sustainability efforts and plans for future green development. Then we spent our afternoon with Phil, a business analyst at FPT software. Surprisingly, the two topics meshed well together, highlighting the economic trends driving Vietnam’s…

Green Viet is a sustainable building consultancy group in Ho Chi Minh City. Mr. Quang, a co-founder, shared their business processes and industry insights today during our sight visit. He presented to us for two hours, starting with the company-specific info and transitioning into the macroeconomic forces influencing the industry today. I found it to…

After more than 30 hours of traveling, stepping out into the streets of Ho Chi Minh City felt surreal. The intense humidity and hundreds of mopeds greeted me instantly. Seeing the mopeds zipping around cars and swerving through lanes as well as seeing a lizard crawling up the exterior of the Victory Hotel made it…