Một sinh viên nhận học bổng tiến sĩ của 7 ĐH hàng đầu

Đó là Lê Anh Vinh (23 tuổi), từng là sinh viên khoa Toán cơ tin (Trường ĐH Quốc gia Hà Nội) và từng đoạt huy chương vàng môn Toán châu Á - Thái Bình Dương, huy chương bạc môn Toán quốc tế.

Năm 2003, Vinh được nhận học bổng toàn phần của Chính phủ Australia theo học ngành công nghệ thông tin tại Trường đại học New SouthWales (UNSW).

Trong 3 năm học ở Australia, Vinh tốt nghiệp 2 bằng cử nhân chuyên ngành toán và công nghệ thông tin. Điểm tốt nghiệp 99/100, cao nhất trong vòng 15 năm của khoa Toán Trường UNSW. Ngay sau khi tốt nghiệp, Vinh được nhận học bổng tiến sĩ toàn phần của 7 trường đại học hàng đầu thế giới là Harvard, MIT, Berkeley, Stanford, Yale, Cambridge và Oxford.

Hiện nay, Vinh quyết định theo học Trường ĐH Harvard vào tháng 9 tới với mức học bổng 56 ngàn USD/năm. Giáo sư Norman Wildberger (một trong những giáo sư đầu ngành Toán học tại Australia) nhận xét, Vinh là một sinh viên xuất sắc mà ông đã từng giảng dạy. Luận văn tốt nghiệp về lý thuyết Ramsey của Vinh được đánh giá là tương đương với luận án tiến sĩ.

Trong thời gian 3 năm học tại Trường UNSW, Vinh đã tham gia hơn 10 đề tài nghiên cứu khoa học về lĩnh vực toán học và tin học (có những kết quả được xuất bản trong cuốn Divine Proportions: Rational Trigonometry to Universal Geometry), được đăng 8 bài báo khoa học tại các tạp chí báo toán quốc tế.

Trong thời gian học tại Australia, Vinh được rất nhiều giải thưởng và học bổng lớn nhỏ, tiêu biểu là giải thưởng dành cho sinh viên xuất sắc nhất về lĩnh vực toán và tin học. Vinh còn được tham gia trợ giảng ở khoa Toán và khoa Tin học ngay từ năm học thứ 2, tham dự các hội thảo và được mời làm việc ở một số nước như: Đức, Australia, Singapore, Ấn Độ...

Damn smart

hehe. A lot of money to go to those places...

I heard they gurantee a passing grade in the Ivy league schools if you pay tuition.

The guy worked hard academically and gifted in math, so he truly deserve such honor and recognition. We should be proud of his accomplishments and encourage others to follow in his footsteps.

Don't waste time over petty jealousy but instead, focus on your positve attributes, and you too will become successful in your own way.

Meh! I'm sure my sister is smarter then that.

lol. I somehow seriously doubt that.

no offence of course.

Undergrads in Harvard are notorious for its grade inflation, but anyway he has a scholarship for $56k a year

If you're happy with a mere passing grade, then you don't belong at those prestigious schools in the first place. Don't buy into such fallacy or rumors. My sister-in-law graduated from Harvard and all of her friends (MIT, Yale, Stanford) seem quite well-rounded, well read and very articulate. They are very down to earth and not arrogant or snobbish as others might perceive.

My brother use to joke that when his kids apply for college at Harvard, the admission committee is going to say, "Ah, his mother went to Harvard....so we'll give him 2 BONUS POINTS. What! his father went to UC Davis...so that's a MINUS 4 POINTS!"

lol

You heard wrong.

The endowment of Harvard, for example, is larger than the cash reserves of a number of Third World countries. The alumni contribution campaigns rake in hundreds of millions each year. And for every ten talented students who apply, only one gets in. I got into Columbia more than 20 years ago and frankly, I am not sure that I'd be able to get in today with the qualifications that I had then.

It was a great thing that Columbia admitted me: I got a full scholarship, which covered all my expenses. When my family moved to New York from Cali, things got better: yes, the Financial Aid Office reduced my financial aid but I got to commute instead of living in a dorm. And I graduated from Columbia College without owing even one dollar because I lived like a starving Vietnamese student rather than like a starving American student - Starving Vietnamese students rarely eat out in restaurants and they don't buy stereo systems. So, even if your family lives below the poverty line as mine did, don't be scared to apply.

If you will be applying to the Ivy League, I recommend Columbia: it's a good school, and you'll have plenty of opportunities to build up your resume while you are in school because NYC is a world class economic center - If you wait until you graduate before you build up resume, you are dead meat: you wouldn't want to show up at an interview with nothing but your expected graduation date on your resume. The problem with the other Ivy League schools is that they are located in the boondocks - no economy, no nothing. And even the pizza delivery jobs are competitive.

i feel dumb compare to this dude >>>>> cries

you should

Nobody is born good at anything. You learn how to be good at it. And if you are not afraid to make mistakes that you can learn from, fall flat on your face, and at times look ridiculous or stupid, the world will be your b!tch sooner or later. I slug, I learn from my mistakes, and I am anal. I can't say that I am invincible but on a good day, I am pretty hard to beat.

That'd make two of us, sista

Hey folks, I am Vietnamese and I back Vietnamese!

Just out of curiosity, what is Columbia known for besides journalism, literature, economic, law? Please enlighten me.

The undergraduate College, the Business School, the Medical School, the Nursing School, the School of Architecture & City Planning, the School of International Affairs, the Chemistry, Biochemistry, Biology, Physics and Math programs and miscellaneous others like East Asian Studies and Romance Languages - all of these have a national reputation.

The Computer Science Department probably does not rank among the top ten in the country, but if you can get part-time and summer jobs on Wall Street and said Department is a feeder into Wall Street, you'll probably be happy with your CS education. Columbia has an Engineering School, whose middling reputation really rests on the well funded CS department.

Translation please.

LE Anh Vinh won gold medal in Math Asia-Pacific olympiad, and silver medal in international olympiad. He went to New Southwales with a scholarship for 3 years, and now he got offered from Harvard, MIT, Berkeley, Stanford, Yale, Cambridge and Oxford for graduate school.

Good for you. Seems like we have many talented people on this forum . Columbia has a good law school and I wouldn't mind going there.

Herosword:

In general, it's better to pick a good/strong university that is located in a major city with lots of employment opportunities such as New York, Chicago, Dallas/Houston than a university that is the middle of nowhere.

I'm doing a summer program at Harvard in June.

envy me



jk, it's only a 6 week long summer workshop.

^Only 6 weeks?

eh... graduate school could be easier to get into than undergrad (depending on the department) at these schools. i'm sure he's still smart though. i think in this day and age, it's more important to just go to a great school no matter the location. sure it's boring as hell in ithaca, durham, and wherever the hell dartmouth is but since the schools are so good, employers come to you. in undergrad full-time recruiting, i don't think there's a huge difference in going to columbia or duke. that said, i'd still rather go to columbia because durham sucks while new york is awesome.

Math Blaster:

The whole point of attending a university in the big city is to soak up the advantages of the big city, to learn as much outside of school as inside, and to build up your career, even as you are studying. In NYC, you could be bust your balls as a PhD grad student by day, and be the stage manager of a theater troupe at night - a great way to meet actresses, by the way. Or you could do what I did: get on the ground floor of an engineering startup as a part-timer and become a senior engineer within three years. Did I fail to mention that the sidewalks of NYC are crawling with some of the most beautiful women in the world?

Yes, it's called a "career discovery" at Havard. 6 weeks of lectures by prestigious professionals and professors and hands on lab.

Sucker.

I don't think so. The Havard name alone will help me get into a good grad school or it will just jump out at employers.

Whatever - it's not my money.

I have to have something. I haven't done any internships, clubs, frats, volunteer. Grades and GRE score alone won't get me into the schools I want to go to like Berkeley, UBC, UToronto.

Look, you pointed your finger at your core issue: no internships, no work experience, no research for a professor. So, what do you think is the most direct way to cure this deficiency? Try to answer without bull$hitting yourself.

I'll guarantee you one thing: these schools get a ton of applicants, and the most obvious question they will ask is "Why do you want to apply in this school, AND in this department?" If you don't have a response that is based on specific knowledge of the field you want to get into and you can't demonstrate interest in the field based on personal experience, you are expendable.

But wouldn't I get specific knowledge in landscape architecture by going to a Harvard landscape architecture summer program?

That's definitely more like it. The "career discovery" course that you were talking about had the look and feel of throwing money down a rathole.

oh, sorry for not being specific.

here's the website.

http://www.gsd.harvard.edu/professional/career_discovery/

It depends on what level the program is. This is a Havard program for college students and professionals already in the field.

I was told it isn't a cakewalk.

Thanks,

The course looks like a good overview course.

You'll be able to argue that you were interested in the field and that taking the course only strengthened your interest in said field. Professor Such-and-Such (drop a couple of names) awakened your interest in (name the specialty), which appeals to your sense of (order? organization? etc). As a result of taking the course, you pursued a number of activities in the field on your own and you hooked up with Professor (name him) to do research for him. You got lucky and you got yourself a job part-time in an architectural & planning firm, and the challenges you encountered (name the challenges) only strenghtened your conviction that landscape architecture is the right thing for you. And you want to attend the school and the department because (name what you expect to get from them).

Now, get cracking.

hehe, I'm definitely saving the above in a file.

So you have getting into Ivy Leagues schools down to a science now huh?

I don't know about that but whatever you do or think, don't fake it: if you don't come across as real, they'll see right through you.

That's what I wasn't sure of. The strongest reason why I want to do this is because it pays very well, and it's in high demand.

I also want to beautify the built environment, but I care more for having the money to buy nice clothes, go out, go on dates, and stuff.

I'm gonna have to lie somewhat.

Don't lie. You are taking the course, because you want to find some real reasons why you like the field. If after all your exertions, you still haven't found real reasons, then you are in trouble. It's OK to like the high life- some of the most successful people in their field also like the high life. And frankly, whether you like the high life or not is no one's business but yours. I have to warn you: if you work just for money and the high life, you'll get burned out fast - real fast.

i agree that there are advantages to being in the big city, but for an undergrad (i can't really speak about the graduate level as i haven't really been there yet) i don't think you'd be sorely lacking if you're not in the middle of a big city (from a purely job perspective, not lifestyle). i mean really the only elite schools that are are columbia, harvard, northwestern, upenn, and MIT. Stanford is in Palo Alto (those kids rarely go to San Francisco), Duke is in Durham, as you mentioned most ivies are in small college towns, etc. I'm just saying that if you go to one of those schools, you won't have much trouble finding a job. your life may or may not suck however as i have friends some of whom enjoy their lives in these places more than i do mine (i am finishing up school in a big city) and some who enjoy it much less.

by the way, i'm going to new york city next year and from what i hear it's dudez a plenti. how do you meet anyone (read a female) who is not your co-worker? i'm not going to really have any time to do any extra-curricular stuff like be the stage manager of a theatre troupe, so i'd really like to know. i'd hate to be lonely in such a big city like that.

good luck stephen on your architecting dreams. i hear it's not easy, but i'm sure you can do it if you put your mind to it.

Thank you Anh Math Buster ^ ^



I see. I will cultivate my desire to beautify the urban landscape then.
Thank you Anh Blacklight

I remember my first time in NYC. The ten blocks of 5th Ave toward Central Park South is like the UN of beautiful women.