Nam Tran and Johnson Huynh excited for the bright futures ahead of them.by Tejas Chadha, staff writer
In the recent weeks, many Fountain Valley seniors learned whether or not they received admission into the colleges that they applied to. Nam Tran (’17) and Johnson Huynh (’17) recently learned that they will be attending some of the best schools in the country. Tran will be attending Harvey Mudd, a private college in Claremont, and Huynh will be attending the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Both seniors are planning on majoring on a form of engineering but have very different goals for where that will lead them. Huynh may take his education and become a teacher or professor in Orange County, while Tran sees himself working for a high powered technology like Microsoft or Facebook.
“So grades, they’re all A’s and in terms of test scores they were competitive but they weren’t exactly stellar, a little bit lower than the average [at MIT], so I think it had more to do with me as a whole rather than just test scores,” said Huynh.
“Don’t be afraid to get maybe one or two B’s it’s not going to kill you or anything but definitely for junior and senior year they say you have optional math and science classes but if you’re going to do something [science, technology, engineering and mathematics] related they are not optional,” said Tran.
A common belief is that these schools look for singularly the students with straight As throughout high school but from Tran and Huynh’s perspective it’s more than grades but also about people as a whole.
“Even though I’m really into [science, technology, engineering and mathmematics], I also like to do things outside of that, and that’s why I like doing improv on Mondays and Wednesdays not because of college because I was interested in it.” said Huynh.
Both Tran and Huynh expressed an importance on branching out in high school to explore subjects and or extracurriculars outside of your field to break the tension and occasional monotony of school.
“It’s nice to have that balance, if you love something focus on it but I feel like everyone should expand it find a balance instead of burning out on one thing but if you do really love that one thing I don’t think you’ll ever burn out on it truly.” said Tran.
