NHUNG BUI '12 arrives on campus unsure of what to expect but determined to study hard and take full advantage of everything Smith had to offer.

By Jenny Hall AC ’04

On August 21, 2008, Nhung Bui waved goodbye to her parents and sister in Hanoi and set off on a thirty-hour journey across eleven time zones to a country she’d never visited before and to a college she has seen only online. Two days later, when I meet her for the first time, she’s in the dining room at Cutter-Ziskind, bravely making conversation in English at a lunch table with other new students from Bulgaria, Mongolia, Poland, Croatia, and the Bahamas. Around them, a cacophony of voices and accents fills the room. Shy, jet-lagged but excited, Nhung takes her place among eighty new international students whose Smith adventure has just begun.
A few days later, in the midst of a weeklong marathon of workshops and activities designed to welcome and acclimate international students to the four years ahead of them, I ask Nhung if I could follow her progress during her first year, to shine a light on what international students go through once they arrive at Smith. Nhung agrees without hesitation. This openness, I’ll come to discover, is characteristic. Her stature (she’s 4-foot-10) and soft-spoken deference mask a courageous and intensely focused individual who is outgoing, willing to take risks, and determined to succeed.
The first few days have left Nhung a bit homesick. Even though she’s settled into her large double room on the second floor of Park House and met her roommate, Veronica Falconi ’12, she’s been spending two to three hours nightly on Skype talking to her family back in Hanoi. Hardly a surprise, observes Hrayr Tamzarian, associate dean for international students and scholars. “Can’t you just imagine how disoriented international students feel?” he says. “The air smells different, the sounds are different, everything. These are very smart women, but remember, they are only 18. This isn’t stuff you learn in the classroom.”
Nhung’s father is a businessman, and her mother works part-time at a tea export/import business. Her sister, Ly, is 12. Nhung and her family lived in Germany for five years, so she has international experience, but this is her first time in the United States. Back in Hanoi at high school, she chose Smith by Googling “America’s best universities and colleges” and comparing colleges online. The small liberal arts, single-sex education appealed to her, and the generous financial aid package ultimately sealed the deal.
During her first few days on campus, Nhung manages to find a few students with Vietnamese surnames, but they are second-generation Vietnamese-Americans who speak Vietnamese only with difficulty. “At first, I was sad,” she admits. “But then people tell me it is better I am alone. Harder, but better, because with no peers, I will have to make friends of other cultures, and I will learn English faster. I will have the courage to learn more.”
Nhung comes to Smith with a clear set of goals, and a formidable work ethic that permeates everything she does, including choosing The Meaning and Value of Work as her mandatory first-year seminar. “Work is very important,” she says. “After you graduate, you will go to work. It is good to prepare. The value and meaning of work is good to understand.”
She intends to major in economics, she explains, because “in Vietnam, that is the best degree to have. Literature, no, you will not get a job.” She’ll also most likely study Chinese. “China is an important country. For my generation, it will be very important to speak Chinese.”
Through the school year, Nhung and I speak regularly, sometimes after classes or via e-mail. A snapshot of those conversations—chronicling the ups and downs of her first year at Smith—follows.

First impressions
September 3, 2008
Last night Nhung attended a bowling party, her first event for all first-years. That the college initiated a social rather than an academic activity perplexes her. “In Vietnam, you don’t have time to do leisure activities. School is very competitive. I go from 7 a.m. to noon. After lunch, I study at home, and in the evening, too. Most of my friends and I, we don’t go to bed before 2 a.m. because we are studying. We study in order to get good grades and get into a good college and get a good job. I have a few hobbies. I draw a little bit. I do yoga. Sometimes I go running. But to study, to work hard, is most important.”
The lush greenness of campus impresses her. “In Hanoi, I live in an apartment. Grass is rare. When I look out of my window, I see construction and many buildings. There is lots of noise all the time. Here all is fresh and green. It’s so natural and nice, and very quiet.”

Convocation confusion
September 7
After Convocation, Nhung sends an e-mail: I am very impressed by Convocation. Most people are very enthusiastic and loud. In my home country, that kind of behavior is not accepted, so it was very strange to me. I think it’s a good idea to make Convocation more “normal” and maybe in some time even formal. I think at least the choir should be dressed in formal clothes. Instead of wearing underwears, I think each house should have a different set of clothes, which is unique, but still formal.

Settling in
September 16
I meet Nhung at her work-study job at Cutter-Ziskind dining hall, where she’s checking as students swipe their OneCards for the meal. On a scale of ten, she rates her stress level at about a five. After just two weeks of classes, she hasn’t gotten any grades and therefore can’t relax. She worries that the two hours a night she spends talking to her family cuts into her study time. She prefers studying to going out, she tells me, a trait she shares with her roommate. “We stay in, study all weekend, even Saturday night,” she says. Veronica agrees. “We both like to be in bed by about 11. And neither of us are partiers, so it works out well.”
Nhung is taking yoga and has joined two clubs, the Vietnamese Students Association and Global Action Against Poverty.

Party style
October 1
Nhung’s first party, sponsored by the International Students Organization at the Campus Center Saturday night, is disappointing. “It was in a big room with all the lights turned off, only disco lights going on and off,” she says. “People were dancing to bad music. It was too loud to talk to anyone. It lasted four hours. Perhaps this is a typical American party? I thought it would be more meaningful, have something to do with our heritage. I think I will not go back if they do it again.”

A break in the action
October 10
Classes are over for the four-day fall break, and Nhung feels relaxed and relieved. Her first two major test scores came back yesterday: 100 on an economics test, and an A in macroeconomics. She doesn’t have much homework, so she’s planning to log extra hours at the dining hall to earn money for her plane ticket home in December. Her main objective for the weekend is to catch up on sleep. She’s been missing the afternoon naps that are the norm in Vietnam. She enjoyed Mountain Day the week before when she slept late, had a brief picnic at Paradise Pond with housemates, and returned to bed.
Her computer is on the blink; it could be the motherboard, an expensive fix. Meanwhile, she’s been going to the computer lab to do her homework.
Park House agrees with her, and she likes her room. Her bed overlooks a window and is outfitted in a lavender and white coverlet. A photo of her parents and sister sits on her desk. The Barbie doll and accessories in plastic shrink-wrap on her bureau will be a gift for her little sister.

Important sights
October 15
On a bus trip to Boston with other international students, Nhung opts to tour MIT and Harvard instead of shopping with the other students. “These are very famous institutions of learning in America,” she says. “It is important for me to see them.”

Tastes of many countries
October 23
Students gather in Morrow House to cook for the annual International Students Day celebration tomorrow. The kitchen is crowded with students in aprons, and the air is filled with delicious and subtle aromas—cardamom, lemon grass, chili, cocoa—and the cadence of many different languages. Pots clang and clash. At one counter, German students are baking apple strudel; at another, the Romanian contingent peels potatoes for salata de boeuf. At a stove, a student from Myanmar fries chicken for chicken curry and coconut rice. Nigerian students arrive with a tape player, which they position above the stainless-steel counter in their work area, and soon a disco beat has them dancing as they peel plantains and chop chicken for a dish called jollof rice.

Midterm blues
November 7
Midway through the semester and the stress level on campus is palpable. Nhung is on edge, worried about papers, tests, and presentations. Her laptop is still broken, she’s at odds with her roommate, and she’s worried about money. Even though her German professor explained that getting a B or even a C at Smith is perfectly respectable, Nhung is not buying it. She’s wondering whether to exercise one of her four pass/fail options, but worries she might need it later.
She’s trying to earn $1,600 for her plane ticket home in December, but at $8 an hour it will be a squeeze. Plus, she may need to use a chunk of her savings to buy a new laptop. On top of everything else, she and her roommate are arguing about the heat. Veronica likes the window open; Nhung likes it closed. The house resident steps in to help settle the issue and Nhung is given an electric blanket. She’s still chilly, she tells me. Changing roommates isn’t an option, though, because she and Veronica are otherwise compatible. She shrugs, and announces her resolutions. “I will wear more sweaters. I will work harder in German. I will work more hours at the dining hall. I will not buy the computer.”

Thanksgiving break
November 21
Nhung’s quest for a perfect 4.0 has hit a bump. Although she has A’s in three of her classes, German continues to vex her. Even after handing in a preliminary draft and making the suggested corrections, she has to settle for a B-plus on her final paper. “She’s too tough,” she says of the professor, heaving a sigh and rolling her eyes. “I don’t know what she wants.”
She’s also hit a snag in her class schedule for next semester. Due to an error in the system (not her fault, as it turns out) she couldn’t register for spring semester classes at the correct time and is now stuck with a lopsided line-up of linear algebra, calc III, and micro- and macroeconomics.
She plans to spend Thanksgiving break at Mount Holyoke with two students there she knows from Hanoi. Although Dean T. (as international students call Hrayr Tamzarian for short) invited the “internationals” for Thanksgiving brunch, she overlooked the invitation somehow and neglected to RSVP. Contacting him now would be rude, she says.
When I ask why, she launches into an explanation of the intricate hierarchy of relationships and protocol in Vietnamese culture. Anyone older than herself, even by a few months, is her elder and must be addressed accordingly. Depending on age, women are addressed as sister, elder sister, aunt, or grandmother; men as elder brother, uncle, or grandfather. Age is one of the first questions one asks upon being introduced if it is not immediately apparent, and it is not considered impolite. “Elders get a lot of respect, so it is very important to know someone’s age exactly,” Nhung says. “Even if someone is 5, 6 months older than I am, I address her as elder sister and defer to her wishes before mine.”
Her thoughts turn to her family and the trip home. Because her flight leaves JFK at 9 a.m., she will travel to the airport the day before and sleep on one of the benches at the gate. “That way I know for sure I won’t miss my flight,” she says.

‘Something very American’
February 9, 2009
Nhung returns to campus a week late after staying to celebrate Tet, the Vietnamese New Year, on January 26. She and her extended family spent the holiday in Xuan Khanh, a small country village thirty miles outside Hanoi. This is where Nhung lived for several years as a child, when her parents were working abroad, and she describes it as a place where her relatives live in houses side by side and go back and forth visiting all day. The food was delicious, and the fireworks were terrific, she says.
But now she’s paying for her late arrival. The math and econ combo is a killer, as she’d feared, and she’s unfamiliar with some of the calculus concepts in her macroeconomics class. It’s making her think twice about her choice of major. She wonders if she should have heeded her adviser, who suggested she explore new subjects. Some friends are taking classes in sociology and psychology, she says wistfully, and enjoying themselves.
“The thing is, I realize econ doesn’t make me happy,” she says. “It would be nice to study something fun. In Vietnam, you don’t think about what you want to do, you do what is expected.”
This is a seismic shift in thinking for Nhung, and she looks surprised. She wonders if it is a result of being at Smith, and thinks it is something very American.

‘She’s a perfectionist’
March 30
Nhung’s back on track, pulling A’s in all her classes. The coursework is going well, and any doubt she felt about majoring in econ has evaporated. Charles Staelin, Nhung’s professor in Microeconomics 250, has nothing but praise. “She obviously knows and enjoys the material and has been well-prepared. She comes in frequently, not because she’s having trouble with the material, but more for confirmation. She’s a perfectionist.”
Associate Professor of Economics James Miller, who taught Nhung last semester, concurs. “She can sometimes appear a little hesitant in person,” he says. “But from the way she aces her exams, you know she knows the material inside out.”

A new role
April 13
Nhung has begun co-teaching a weekly Vietnamese-language class sponsored by the Smith Vietnamese Students Association for children adopted from Vietnam and their parents. “Teaching is so different than being in class,” she tells me happily. “In a class, you are part of a whole group, not so important. As teacher, I am very visible. It makes me more confident. I like that.”

A visit from home
April 27
Pham Trang, a classmate from Hanoi, has applied to transfer to Smith and has been visiting the campus. She attends Landscape Studies 100 with Nhung. After class, I watch them walk from Bass Hall up through the botanic garden together, leaning toward each other, their glossy black heads bent deep in conversation. Occasionally, one will stop and gesture or laugh. Rapid-fire but soft Vietnamese trails behind them. I think I have never seen Nhung look happier.

Stepping into leadership
May 2
Nhung finishes out the year with a flourish: She has been selected by the curriculum committee of the Student Government Association to join its board next year, elected treasurer of the Vietnamese Students Organization, and selected peer tutor by the math department and teaching assistant by the economics department.
She’s thrilled to be recognized academically by both the math and economics departments. Also, because they are work-study positions, she will be able to replace her work at the dining hall with something more meaningful to her.

Summer plans
May 8
It’s the last day of exam week, and the summer exodus is in full swing. Nhung finished her last final at noon, and calculates that her GPA for the year will be 3.9. “German and yoga were A-minuses; everything else, A.”
Veronica left Tuesday. To her surprise, Nhung misses her. “She gave me a present and a card; it was very nice. She was a good roommate after all.” Veronica will be sharing a room with a friend next year; Nhung has applied for a residence life position at Cutter, a job that comes with a single room.
She will fly home Monday morning. Meanwhile, she is busy packing and purchasing small gifts for her extended family: cosmetics, vitamins, some chocolates.
Her summer plans are open. She could work for a cousin who is a financial analyst, but isn’t sure. “When I am in Vietnam, I don’t think about Smith,” she explains with a shrug. “When I am here, I don’t think about Vietnam. Two different worlds.”

Epilogue
May 29
Being home again is taking some getting used to, Nhung writes in an e-mail. I am home for over two weeks already and it is a little bit boring because I don’t have that much to do. I got second-semester grades some days ago, and I got A’s in all subjects. It was better than I had expected and I am very relieved. I am taking a Chinese class now, but it’s not as much fun as I expected.
Reflecting upon her year at Smith, she writes, “It was hard to adjust to the way of studying, writing papers, and doing homework. It was quite unexpected for me how much work it requires and how much I learned in my first year; especially my critical thinking skills improved. It is very hard, actually. It seems like I learned more than all my high school years combined, and it’s so rewarding.
I am trying to diversify my courses next year and fulfill my responsibilities in the activities (treasurer, student government, etc.) and I am looking forward to applying to a program abroad for junior year. I would give [international students entering Smith] the advice to socialize and not worry too much about things. It would have been much better if I was more free-minded. But I think that it’s quite normal when living abroad by myself. Worrying also means that one is growing up.