Yen (born in 2000), a native of Lang Giang (formerly Bac Giang), was offered a full scholarship from Oxford University and a support package worth nearly VND4 billion for two years from Yale University, where she chose to attend.

Leaving home at 7

Suffering from congenital visual impairment, Yen had undergone seven surgeries by the time she turned 20 days old. Despite this, her left eye retained only 0.5/10 vision, while her right eye lost sight completely.

At the age of five and a half, her father enrolled her in a school for children with disabilities in Bac Giang. Two years later, following the advice of an uncle in the provincial association of the blind, her father decided to send his daughter to a shelter for the visually impaired in HCMC.

"That decision was not easy, but my father always believed it was the best thing for me. It was his faith that became the motivation for me to go far," Yen said.

At 7 years old, Yen had to learn to live away from home, carrying a family photo and the unconditional love of her parents. For the following year, she was tutored privately by the nuns at the shelter before transitioning to inclusive education in the third grade.

While her classmates needed just two textbooks per subject, Yen used nine to 10 braille books. But the biggest obstacle for her then was not academics, but her peers’ stares.

“In seventh grade, I once wanted to drop out because classmates teased me and I felt self-conscious about my appearance,” Yen recalled.

Still, the young girl soon realized that without education, she would depend on others for life. “I believe learning is the path that helps people with disabilities take control of their lives,” Yen said.

From then on, she set goals for herself. Throughout her school years, Yen was consistently an outstanding student.

Beyond academics, Yen won more than 50 domestic and international sports medals, including a silver at the 2015 ASEAN Para Games and a gold at the 2017 Asian Youth Para Games.

The road to top universities 

In 2018, Hai Yen was admitted to the Social Work major at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, HCMC. After two years there, Yen realized the environment did not fit her academic goals and changed direction. In 2020, she was admitted to Fulbright University Vietnam.

In the new environment, language pressure and different learning methods left Yen constantly stressed.

“The students around me were all excellent and spoke English fluently. I understood only about 10 percent of what the teachers said,” Yen recalled.

At the end of her first semester, Yen received her first D ever. But instead of giving up, she kept trying. She recorded lectures to listen again and sought help from the academic support center to improve her study skills. Those efforts gradually paid off.

In 2024, Yen graduated with distinction in both majors, Psychology and Vietnamese Studies, and received “Honors,” ranking in the top 20 percent of students.

Choosing Yale 

After graduating, Yen spent two years working while building her study-abroad profile, aiming to become a lecturer and pursue in-depth research on mental health.

In her applications to top universities, Yen did not focus on personal achievements but went deep into answering: “Who will I become and what will I contribute to the community?”

The student shared her thoughts about research projects she joined, from a collaboration with Harvard University on overthinking among LGBTQI+ teens to studies on how mental health affects unemployment among people with disabilities in Vietnam and the US.

In 2021, Yen co-founded a massage therapy spa project that creates jobs for people with disabilities, and co-founded The VIP Companion, an organization training skills such as using AI and writing CVs for the visually impaired.

Thanks to an outstanding academic profile, in-depth research, and six recommendation letters from international professors and researchers, she received admission letters from the seven prestigious universities. Yen chose Yale University because its program best fits her research direction in public health and mental health. She still has to cover part of her living costs.

Thuy Nga