Faces of DePauw

Accepting Unanswered Questions

Throughout my journey at DePauw, there are many questions that I ask myself every day. Despite many classroom discussions about equality and social justice, what if what I am doing is only constrained in the classroom, and I am not changing the world in a meaningful way? What if I am not contributing to changing the system for the better, but just becoming another cog in the wheel? What if even after I have worked hard, the injustice and inequality are still there? Education studies and economics contrast each other in so many profound aspects that it sometimes surprises me how I decided to choose both. Their different takes vary from macro topics like privatization, globalization and democracy to daily conversations like what a student should major in. 

 It took some time, but I came to acknowledge that these differences not only contradict, they also enrich each other. While economics shows me how the world works, education studies encourages me to move toward what the world can be. In order to contribute to a more diverse and equitable world, it is vital to know about the resources, politics and people of the world today. 

I strongly believe that education can liberate people, and this has been the case for me at DePauw. Always there to support me were my amazing professors in the Education Studies Department, administrators at the Center for Diversity & Inclusion and my talented fellow students. Their diverse backgrounds and thus viewpoints toward education motivate me to challenge my current understanding of the importance of education and myself. It is okay that there are questions that I cannot answer – maybe not now, maybe not after my graduation, maybe not even after the next 10 years. Nevertheless, I have never once regretted my decision to walk on this path.

Majors: Education Studies and Economics
Hometown: Hanoi, Vietnam
Campus Involvement: Lead International Ambassador, Center for Diversity & Inclusion (CDI), X-Cell Dance Team, Management Fellows, Vietnamese Student Association (VSA), The DePauw Newspaper, Writing Tutor.
Internships/Winter Terms: UNIV 184: Marketing for Businesses & Nonprofits (Winter ’22), ISA Summer Intern (Summer ’23), Fusion Education Group Intern (Spring ’24).