This is great! Thank you. Back to you.

We’d like to say a big thank you for everybody that’s following our show.

Thanks people think we are so educational that people love our show so much.

As people who work on the show are so happy about that, so thank you guys so much!

I wonder what the topic is today.

I see pencil case, laptop.

Thank you.

But I wonder what topic it’s really about today.

We have so many people requesting for different topic.

Thank you.

And now, I finally get to know, the topic today’s on university.

I know the perfect pair who’s going to give us some inside into university on the IELTS exam.

And they are people that have been very successful in the university application.

And these are two people and of course, before we meet them, I gonna prepare a little bit of the script.

We gonna meet them right now, ok?

Hey, you’re back with us in the studio and right here we have two people that are going to talk to you about university.

They’re quite experienced because they spend the majority of their time in the university environment.

So let’s welcome Phuong Mac Tri and Viet Nguyen to the studio.

Thanks guys for coming.

Thank you for having us.

Why did you spend so much time in school?

That’s an interesting question.

I think the quickest answer maybe I enjoy school and I find myself doing well in my study.

But part of the reason why I have spent so much time in school is because each of the stage of my education is around a different area.

So it keeps me interested in term of the research that I do and the kind of knowledge that I gain for my study.

What about you, Viet?

I think, for me, I generally say it’s because I always bad at making friends and I like being in the library a little bit more.

But also because, like Tri, I love learning. And the thing that I want to study is a little bit more long and involved.

Like the process of becoming a doctors is very long!

So it kept me about life in the libraries in schools.

A lot of people want to ask, you’re both from prestigious institutions, “How do you get into those institutions?”

I actually have never thought about going to one of these schools.

I went to a state school for undergraduate, so it really wasn’t part of my directory, for saying.

It wasn’t like a dream that I dared to dream.

But it turns out that, I think, it was like life, sort of, brought me there in many ways.

Partially, I think the process was that it seemed like a good school for my professional development at that time.

For me, I’m about to fight for residency again.

So I’m diving into the letter of recommendations, personal statement, in the transcriptions, somethings like that.

And it makes me realize that preparing for these applications is the long process.

It’s been my entire life, it’s not the three months before that application is due.

So I think it’s a process of learning for myself, what I care about,

what matters, building relationships that can help me in that process of developing skills necessary to progress academically or professionally.

So the story of my part is a little funny, because I grew up in Central Square, Cambridge, which is about fifteen-minute walk from Harvard University.

But growing up and going to high school, we always start of Harvard yard, which is area where a lot of classes and the students living in dormitories.

We thought of Harvard yard is just a yard that we walk through to get to Harvard square to hang out and have fun.

Because in high school, we just hang out in Harvard square a lot.

But the short story is that after junior year, we have to take the PSAT back in my days.

After getting your score, you get a certain range; the school will send you a catalog.

I receive a catalogue that summer and Harvard surely looked really nice.

So I started having a different image of what Harvard yard stood for.

That inspired me to study hard for the test to able to prepare myself for application.

But what an honest truth about why to pursuit these school is that in America, at least, these are schools that have the most resources.

Harvard has a very good financial aid.

So if you’re students who work hard to get yourself to the stage of being able to have good test score or good resume,

you’re providing a opportunity for yourself to have a chance to get education for free.

That’s one of the, I think, great incentives for young people to think about.

I think one of the main goal that a lot of Vietnamese students right now, when it comes to choosing a new university,

it is “What can I do or what can I study so I can be financially stable, I can make the most money”.

I think, on the one hand, that is the real thing they have to think about to sustain their family.

But on the other hand, I think there should be also room for us all to think about

what we’d like to do, what we passion about, where we see ourselves as people in the long term, not with what career but with what we gonna be doing.

I think it’s more important.

And I think you guys reflected that idea very very well in your decision to pick whatever to study in university.

I just gonna say I think I’m actually coming back here this time, I have a lot of hope that people can pursuit different interests, find a way to make it financially sustainable.

As we’re becoming much more like global world,

there’s a lot more investment for different ideas and different thoughts

that may not be so conventional and entrepreneurship seem to be like very quickly growing thing in Vietnam.

I think I’ll build on your last point and also try to connect that to reflection that in a rapidly developing economy, certain skill set or experiences that are valuable

and those people want to those skill set in order to get a job or provide for your family, their future, to plan for career advancement.

There’s a lot of valuable experience from observing how life works on the street.

Part of the community work I was going to do at that time was learning how to listen to people,

because people will have different pressure, stress and challenges that face them in their community, in their individual life or with their job.

One of the way that one can gain, sort of dispose intellectual,

the high level and analytical skill and also soft skills such as emotional intelligence or the ability to interact, make people feel comfortable when you meet someone new.

And a lot of the soft skills are actually not maybe stressed in the education system here in the sense

that actually one of the most successful I think, thing I was prepare myself for is coming to League university, you gonna meet a lot of people not from the same background as you.

You gonna meet people with very totally different, maybe ways to communicate, maybe different social economic background.

You gonna be in touch with them, you have to communicate with them to your four years.

So one way to solve is to prepare oneself to be able to listen, to be able to be at time to get conflict.

And maybe, in Vietnam sometimes, conflict is not so good.

Anyone wants to agree and just like have fun, and just take it easy.

But actually, conflict is something that in American university, is a growing process.

So I think conflict actually makes the leadership too.

And the ability to handle conflict, listen and also to still maintain a friendship or a relationship in conflict is something

that means that they have some experiences too in the past year.

When I talk on top idea about leadership, I think one of the values of taking leadership position

or trying to engage with the problem actually develop empathy, like an ability to recognise how difficult it is to live.

Regardless whether or not, you ultimately come to leader cooperation, you might be able to negotiate the difficult in a professional relationship a little bit more.

There’s an idea by an author, an anthropologist, I think, her name’s Anne Fadiman.

She writes about standing at the shoreline.

She wrote a pretty well-known book called “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down”.

She mentioned how her role as a writer standing at the cast between the family’s loses and the doctor.

It was like the shoreline between the ocean and the sand.

And how they’re at those point of turbulence, is where you can see the most dynamic changes in the most movement.

There is where you can see both the ocean and the land.

So for me it’s been inspiring to not shy away from things that are difficult or uncomfortable.

Because they can be growing movements.

Absolutely!

What I want to highlight is built up with what you’ve just mentioned,

maybe useful for students in Vietnam wanting to have aspiration for studying overseas and on comparing themselves culturally for that transition.

One thing that Viet and I share in common is the experience from emigrant background.

Our parents emigrated from Vietnam to the United States when I was very young, before Viet were born.

When we grew up, the dynamic of conflict and change and empathy is extremely important for our life experience, for survival in some ways.

We grow up in an immigrant family and with parents.

When that’s beginning, a completely new cultural system tries to make a living where we were learning the language, requires a new tongue in some ways.

How does that language, how do we communicate back to our parents who are in some way,

from a different culture, a Vietnamese culture, where we are somewhat hybrid Vietnamese Americans.

When we get older and become more fluent, it’s like institutional working of a new country, we either have a translate or support a family in navigating that.

But we also have new aspirations, being raised in that system.

That also leads question to a lot of adaptation, flexibility and mainly to the experience coming back to Vietnam afterwards and how that plays out.

I think you guys touch on a lot of things that’s I think very important.

If you’re watching at home, if you consider university, you also face a big question “Who you are? How you are academically compared to other”.

What university choice?

How is that going to influence your future?

But if you listen to our conversation, I think a lot of things that we will be really really focusing on

is who we are, how do we protect ourselves and what do we wanna do, not necessary to a career but

where do we see ourselves affecting the community and affecting other people.

I think those are some of the key points that we should also look at when we consider university options.

Nowadays, there’s a lot of information out there.

You can look up how to apply for US universities online.

You can look up how to apply for UK universities online.

And if you’re considering Vietnamese education, focus well on your score in order to get into that school.

But at the end of the day, university’s a platform for us all to grow.

What we do with our university education and what we do after university is also really important as well.

So I think university is just really a starting point of everything.

Would you like to showcase each other and also us something that’s not academic,

that are fun, that are some of your talents?

So I can do something.

It’s a silly song I think, maybe reflected of… I actually attended kindergarten in Vietnam,

but then moved to the United States at the age of seven.

This is the song I’d like to do.

It’s a little silly, but hopefully it’s fun.

I will perform too, but excuse me, it’s very silly.

Provide more support.

Thank you Vit.

Viet, not Vit.

(The song is One duck).

One duck, alright.

If I say something wrong in Vietnamese, excuse me, but it’s been a long time since kindergarten.

But I want to perform something, just for fun.

You know what I realize in that performance, you made one little mistake.

At the end, it’s “vay cai canh cho kho” (flapping to dry the wings), you weren’t shaking the wings, you were shaking something else.

Sorry, maybe I was thinking “Dui” (thigh)

So maybe tell wings.

Maybe Viet could do it correctly.

No, she followed you.

Tri was calling the mother duck.

Maybe yes.

Ok, Viet what are you gonna do for us?

Part of my year hood, I didn’t grow up in Vietnam.

I never heard any Vietnamese folk songs or childhood songs.

Throughout this year and though my travel and interview, I actually got the chance to learn a lot of these classic Vietnamese childhood songs.

And I was touched, because there’s so much more emotional and so much more authentic, in some ways, like “The wheel on the bus”.

I’m just gonna sing a little bit.

Then I share a bit about my mom, so I think there’re ....to it too.

How did you learn about this song?

And how’s that related to you and your mother?

I have the privilege of going on the trip throughout Vietnam and I was connected with a lot of different elements of promoting education as well as providing musical inspiration and part of public health.

I was very fortunate to be able to share about a lot of different topics that are important to me, whether it’s like hygiene or importantly sexually productive health to young girls.

And Q&A consultation about general health issues like high blood pressure, joint-pain problems.

Through that process, I was introduced to a bunch of Vietnamese folk songs.

Among them, there was this “Em di dua com” (I deliver lunch to my mom).

The obvious things that it was tinned with idyllic childhood in the world landscape that I have never experience when I think I, sort of, always yearn for.

A lot of the symmetries in that songs speaks to my experience about what my mother was too.

Like someone who’s always hardworking, who’s always make sure that people at first to always stay up late.

Absolutely.

Next up is the IELTS MARATHON.

So let’s go.

Hey, you’re back on 8IELTS and this is the 8IELTS MARATHON CHALLENGE.

We have two contenders today, not just one and they are Tri and Viet.

Welcome them.

You guys ‘ve been so educated, you’ve been in school for so long, I assume this probably gonna be an easy challenge.

We’ll see how it goes, looking forward to it.

First up, we have a blindfold for you.

And Tri, you gonna blindfold yourself.

Ok.

Right now, both of you will have to close your eyes.

One, two, three close your eyes.

Both of you can open your eyes, but I know only one person can see.

Viet, you can direct Tri now to find the information letter, a passport as well as a set of key.

Alright my friend, I think that you should squat down, and put your hand straight down.

Ok.

Go to your side, go to the right.

Yeah.

Pick it up and see if it has anything.

Confirmation letter.

Reach out in front of you, with your right hand.

Yeah, I know, something.

Good.

There might be a problem. The confirmation letter need to be detached.

Ok, so I take this off.

Yeah, good, ok.

So we have one more thing.

Ok.

I think it’s a passport, so it’s possibly in a little container thing.

Maybe you can move to your left.

Your feet have a bunch of things underneath them.