I think the post title sums it all up, hah.

I am tempted to make a Vlog, like my fellow scholar, and perhaps I will ride his coat tails later on.

But that is the biggest tip I can tell you. You should definitely check out your schools’ deadlines just to make sure you’re on point. You can find out most dates on the FAFSA website, but you may have to go to your school’s website.

I just recently filled out my FAFSA. Not as daunting as it seems anymore. So don’t stress your first time around. Or maybe it’s just me. But the FAFSA is much easier now because they’ve added hints and the like, also read thoroughly. I was about to fill out this one section about my mom’s assets and I called Babson just to check if they need that part, and they didn’t. So just be patient with what you’re doing so you can save yourself time and a headache later.

Hah, not much I can say about the FAFSA I think. Government Aid is nice, but it doesn’t cover it all. And don’t think about school as an expense. It is an investment in your future.

Also here is a blog you should definitely check out – Cal Newport’s Study Hacks – just a little light reading for you now that your apps are done.

I was going to keep some of the more major things I’ve been doing at college under wraps, but in light of a series of events that have occured back home I feel the need to stop being so abstract and “wise man” like and show maybe proof that the sky’s the limit regardless of “this, that, and the third”. Hopefully I don’t sound like I’m gloating…but I am. Just kidding, hah.

So maybe we should kick it off with my high school year.

January 1st passed, just like you guys now, all my applications are done and I’m feeling overly relieved. Between my schools it was a whole bunch of business schools: Washington & Lee, Uni. of Virginia, Uni. of Richmond, and Babson. And then there was the Rhode Island School of Design. I know!! Complete 180 from all of the schools I’ve applied too, but that was my sort of crazy, not-secure school that I would go to if I decided to pursue my more creative dreams.

Well the rest is history as they say, but it’s actually more like a long story I’m going to explain in my blog.

I never went to RISD as you know, hah, I was too scared to follow that route, but to serve as a medium I went to Babson, which I thought would be nice because Boston is right there and a big city means big opportunities. Oh good lord I forget to mention that at that time and currently still, I was/am passionate [is that too corny of a word to use?] industrial design/product design. Industrial design is basically the creation of new products. Some of your favorite companies have a huge emphasis on design: Apple, BMW, Fender, etc. You get the gist.

Right anyway, so I’m all gung-ho about design so I email the professor, Sebastian Fixson, in charge of this really cool class at Babson called Product Design & Development. So I email him once I decided on going to Babson. We remained in correspondence all throughout the summer, and after the first week of college I email him again and we set up a time to just talk about everything. So I meet him and I’m trying to exude my passion as much as possible, and let me remind you meeting him was a HUGE thing for me – I had already planned on sitting in on his PDD class. Anyways we talk about everything and he offers me a seat in the course!!! This just put a smile upon my face because even though I wouldn’t get credit I would learn something, which I did, and I also created a few important relationships. Right also this course was a 3 school joint program with Babson College for business, Olin College for engineering, and the Rhode Island School of Design – HOW COOL THAT EVERYTHING COMES BACK 360 [actually I knew about the class before I came].

Check out more from the class here

Anyways I sit in on the class and [this part always makes me laugh] it’s full of 3rd years & 4years and I introduced myself and I said I was a 1st year at Babson and I picked business over RISD and they all laughed at me. Woot! So I sit in on other classes and I even got to go to RISD, which is absolutely beautiful by the way, and I met a man named Tim Prestero of Design That Matters. A quick aside, DTM is a non-profit that produces products that are actually of use to people in 3rd world countries such as medicial devices.

Tim had this really interesting project where students would be making a phototherapy unit to help fight hyperbilirubinemia/jaundice in newborns [you can find out more here and click around that is only one type of HB]. If there are any parents, you know how this works. The jaundiced baby/baby with hyperbilirubinemia is placed under a blue light [yes blue light is all it takes] and in a few days the problem is gone. Well this project was of particular interest to me because it was to be made in Vietnam and first implemented in Vietnam, my home country. As you know, Vietnam is not so rich, and the best phototherapy units, such as the neoBlue, cost up to $10,000 USD. Yeah that’s not working for a third world country.

I approached Tim and we exchanged information and I email him a few days later seeing how I could help even though I was a first year. He then directed to the Babson MBA graduate students who were working on this. I emailed them, and then I met Shilpi Gupta, Molly McDonald, Lara Clemenzi, Rahul Bhansali, & Prakash Bhatia the students on the project. We met over the course of the semester and worked on a design that would fit the culture [even my mom helped!]. Well long story short, the final product matched the best phototherapy unit on the market, the neoBlue, on output and the product lasts, about, 10,000 hours. And guess what? The creation of the product only takes $400 USD. Labour expenses will raise the cost of the unit once it starts becoming manufactured in Vietnam, HOWEVER, everything should remain will under $1000 USD. Also, by the time the product was in the design fair at Babson, there were already 300 orders for it.

Here are photos:

This is Praks with our baby. And our finished design.

I am completely honored to have worked with these people, they are nothing short of amazing. Something major come from practically nothing. Even if you’ve got a million to one shot, you’ve still got a shot.

“The most powerful weapon on Earth is the human soul on fire” – Ferdinand Foch,
Duylam

This is post is going to be a McFlurry of things – just a heads up.

I was recently talking to a friend of mine at Babson, Alex, and he told me he wanted to transfer to Stanford or USC [both in his home state]. But he said “Man, but I may just give up on Stanford, my GPA isn’t high enough for it.” He has a 3.67 or a 3.7 – pretty good for a first year. Anyway.

Now I’m back home in good ol’ Virginia and I was talking to my good friend, David, who actually goes to Stanford. We talked about this, that, and the third – we had a lot of college stuff to catch up on. I finally asked him though about the whole GPA, test scores, etc thing and what it meant to Admissions @ Stanford [and I believe this is the same for all top tier schools]. He said that all of the good stats are super fantastic and it does help a lot, but he said that especially for Stanford, it is all about the passion. The passion you have for whatever it is that you do and it is about showing that passion through your essays. Now don’t quote me for every school, but I think it’s safe to say that it is the same for all schools. Maybe my fellow scholars can enlighten on it.

So convey passion. Make your essays exude the sweat, blood, and tears you’ve shed over the years. Easier said than done I know, but a key, as you probably already have heard, to conveying it is through an example of your life. It’s too easy to just say “I want to be the best”, instead show them it!

Anna Ivey even agrees upon this principle of conveying passion as a key to admission to law schools. But regardless of which school, undergrad or grad, passion is the key.

Here are some law school essay examples of how NOT to write. I figure if I give an example of what SHOULDN’T be done then there will be more space for your own style instead of following what is a good essay.

Bad Law School Essays

I would now leave off with a quote from Atlas Shrugged, but stupid me I forgot to mark the page with the quote – it was from Hank Rearden – but it went something like: “What he feared most was not those that oppose him, but losing the ability of motion, of not wanting to take action.”

Merry Christmas,
Duylam

…but I don’t think any of us needs a day to give thanks. I must say I am thankful for all things here – from my freedom of speech to the fact that my mom calls me every day [yes every day haha].

I would shed some light on my past and tell you why I’m thankful for this that and the third, but today I ran across a Wall Street Journal article about an Iranian-American, dissenting against Iran, who got an anonymous email saying that his family would be harmed if he did not stop producing slanderous material against Iran. 2 days later his mother called and security had arrested his father and told her that the young Iranian-American, Koosh, would not be able to safely return to Iran.

Iranian Protest

Iranian Crackdown Goes Global – WSJ article

Everything in my life, regardless of whether it is “bad” or “good”, I am thankful for. This article just proves to me once more that the grass I stand on is as green as it can get. Happy Holidays everyone.

Viva la vida,
-Duylam

Dang, you got an 84 on that Calc test? Good luck getting in YaleVardStanNceton or ColumWillBrownReedMudd [hmm, smashing college names doesn't work as well first names].

Many of you probably applied E.D. to schools already. Some of you probably took a test and didn’t do well on it. Now you’re freaking out because Stanford only accepts 4.48 students.  Students by the way who have never once gotten below a 99% on any test since kindergarten [those kids didn't do well on their coloring tests]. This is so false. My friend David got into Stanford when he got like a 75 on his physics test.

Tip to be gained: Don’t stress out over everything!
Other tip: Don’t slack in school just because you applied ED. I was an abuser of procrastination when I was in your shoes.

Another tip: Don’t put all your money on your ED school, you might not get in. Now using the business lingo I’ve learned: Hedge your bets by allowing yourself a margin of safety. [It feels pretty cool knowing what those finance guys are saying]

I didn’t apply ED to any school because well most of my schools didn’t have an ED option, and I’ll tell you something for those of you who are starting to pick or starting Apps [you guys have better started!! don't procrastinate]. You may be easily distressed as well. Yeah you might feel like time is running out, and in all technicality it is running, but I won’t say running out because that’s too pessimistic.  But hold on to your wits, Little Wing. Don’t you get pessimistic. So here is my piece of wisdom I have fought so hard to learn. Take life a step at a time. Don’t try to have an all night session for your paper. Or write your CommonApp essay RIGHT BEFORE IT’S DUE.

My friends were a huge factor in helping me get my things done in an orderly manner. They got me this picture frame that said “Procrastination: Hard work pays off later. Laziness pays off now.” You really don’t want a bad later.

So you know go to your advisor and ask him or her to help get your transcript ready to send off. They can be really slow sometime. And for those of you who haven’t found a school; try leafing through some College magazines. Or if you have a person you admire [Akio Toyoda for me] why don’t you see where they went to school and check it out.

May your lows keep you humble and your highs keep you tied,
- Duylam

I don’t like being a sore loser, so horrah for the Yankees. How about that Matsui?

Hey guys, me again [I hope someone actually reads my blog haha]

As the days roll by, I find that I’m becoming more and more enveloped with promoting this blog, and getting CSO’s message out. Why? Why…well it used to be because I was a scholarship winner and I was excited about blogging. I still am of course, but the answer to “Why?” is becoming, for lack of a better word, clearer and more meaningful.

As a son of immigrant parents, I am my family’s “golden child”. My family has sacrificed their own comfort just so I can live unchained by the limitations of Vietnam. Guess what? I’m just one out of thousands and thousands of kids with the same story. Your life could be based off the same platform as mine – a family who believes in their seed.

So this brings me back to the question “Why blog? Why promote this when you got the scholarship?” Because I got to eat some pie, and everyone else should eat too. What I’m trying to say is that there are plenty of other people who want to “eat” and now that I have my piece I need to help them eat. Because I understand what it’s like to be without pie, and I understand what it’s like to have a family who believes in you, and I understand that you sometimes feel like Atlas carrying the weight of the world, and I understand what it is like to stay up at night wondering how you’ll ever get out of this hell hole. We’ve all shared the same hunger pains,  &  we are tied together, while we may not know each other, by a shared value and struggle. What I’m saying is sometimes we all need a helping hand, or maybe someone to help light that next step in your path and I want to do that. So when you read my blog know that this isn’t because CSO. It’s because we all need somebody and when there isn’t someone to help the world seems to be at its darkest.

So yeah, we were all put at the bottom. We’re all near the ledge, but just take a leap of faith and let your eagle wings spread,

Duylam

I was told to make the title catchy. aren’t phonetic spellings eye catching?! haha

I recently went to see the marketing director at Babson, Gene Begin, and we were discussing how I could push the blog and get it read. The conversation digressed slightly and we talked about the admission blogs of various colleges & universities. Gene told me as far as Babson goes not many prospective students comment on the blog for who knows what reason. But on UVA’s [University of Virginia] blog people comment every breathing second they have, seriously there are so many comments made.

This talk led me to think of two things for those who’s shoes I was once in.

Let’s say you are picking colleges and looking into them and you are trying to get a real “feel” for a college.

Go straight to the students. Go on facebook, call the school and ask for a student [this is only for those who are socially open a.k.a. not shy a.k.a. not me], or send a student an email. Just ask them to tell you everything, and hearing the story from their side will give you a better feel for the college. That’s what happened to me – I got on facebook and a freshman [sophomore now] sent me a message and we chatted a bit about this & that. They won’t bite or judge you – in fact most students love talking about themselves and their schools haha.

Secondly once you found a school you might be interested in go straight to the admission blog. Ask questions, post comments. This will give you a feel for HOW to get in. I religiously spent time on admission blogs. I breathed college applications.

So let’s sum this up. Talk to college students. Go on college admission blogs. OH AND CC DISCUSSION IS A GREAT WAY TO CONNECT!!!

If you can’t hear your sneakers you aren’t ballin’ hard enough,

Duylam

P.S. What about them Phillies?

I tried to think of what to say to the readers of this blog at first I was going to be specific and target the seniors, but after a draft I figured my message can be applied to everyone.

I remember October senior year, and now it’s a year later and I’m in college chasing these dreams of mine. It all seems so long ago, but when I look back it wasn’t, it just moved so fast – so fast it slipped out of my hands. Looking back on my high school career and much of my life, I honestly mean it when I say I regret some of it. As I step and move further away from my past, I understand what people mean when they say youth is wasted on the young. I don’t mean to make myself sound any wiser than I am, but the grass isn’t greener on the other side. The grass you’re standing is pretty much Kelly green. The problem is we never notice. We enjoy the things around us, but we don’t appreciate it.

You might read this now and think I’m completely bonkers, but you’ll know what I mean one day. So, my friend, stop yourself as you step forward to create wealth and success within your family. Don’t forget how sweet it is to be with your family or how fun it is to just kick it with your friends. As much as you want to be 18 or 21, you can only travel through time in one direction – forward – and with one speed – normal. Why not enjoy it?