Nga Nguyen (Eric)

INTG 100

Third draft

A New Life

When I lived in Vietnam, I had a choice to go to France, Italy, Germany, The U.S., or Singapore to seek a better life. These are some of the big and popular countries in the world where young Vietnamese students want to go to study. Every country has its own unique education. In my point of view, I think the US has a better education and more opportunities for me to develop myself. I am sure most of the immigrants in the US agree with me. I decided to come to the US when I was in high school. After a few weeks attending at the US high school, I realized how different the schools are between Vietnam and US about language, school, and my daily routine… and it called as the disadvantages and advantages as an immigrants.              

Most of all my classmates were Americans and others were from different countries but English was the only language that we used to communicate with others in school. At that time, I had just been in the US for about a month, and I was not able to speak English. There were a few Vietnamese people in school, but not in my class. I could not talk to anyone in class at all. Sometimes, in class I was thinking that this is not what I had imagined before I came here. How can I learn something when I cannot even understand what the teachers or my classmates are talking about? I was so depressed and sad. I used to sit by myself, without friends, unlike how it was in Vietnam. In my old class, we would gather up in a group, and I used to made jokes that made everybody laugh. In Chicago, I could not. My classmates couldn’t understand what I was saying. This either made me feel like this country did not belong to me or I should go back to Vietnam. 

Besides the disadvantage that I could not communicate with people, my school in Chicago has good supplies and a lot of modern technology for students to running some tests that some classes are required to. They do not have those in my old school in Vietnam, my classmate and I in Vietnam would just watch them online or use some old technology. We don’t have any of the newest materials like in the US because my old school could not afford them. The technology in my old school did not give the students the exact results that supposed to get. Moreover, another good advantage was my new school in US is that they were providing meals and food for students for every breakfast and every lunch for free. This is amazing because in Vietnam, we never had this; students had to go outside of school and buy food with their own money. Otherwise, students have to go back home which is 30 minutes away and spend another 30 minutes to get back to school so that was a waste of time. Some people brought their own food to school but until lunch, the food was not good anymore. They did not have a microwave in my old school either. According to what I said before, here, America has more opportunities and chances for me to succeed and have a better education.

 

Furthermore, there is also one of the big disadvantages to me was the time I had spent doing homework. English is my second language, so I had a lot of trouble while learning English as a new language which is completely different with Vietnamese. I had to learn pronunciation, spelling, and grammar. Everything was different which made me so exhausted at the first and even still now. My classmates and I were same age, but I had to study two or three times harder than them to keep up in class. They spent only two hours finishing all their homework, but I needed at least four to 5 hours because I need to use translate and then switch the whole sentence to Vietnamese, which would waste my time. On the other hand, in Vietnam, I didn’t have to worry about any of these, I was just taking time, having fun with my friends, and did it later at night. In Chicago, my two places I spend the most of my time is school and home, everything has change; my daily routine, and my hobbies.

There are a lot of advantages and disadvantages to live in a whole new different country but sometimes I just have to accept my new life, and try harder. Studying in the U.S. will help me achieve my goals, which would make it be easier for me to do that what I had planned. Since the day I came here, I knew it would not be easy to live in another country that had a completely different cultures, so I had to be prepared. I am ready to challenge myself and be better. Everything has two sides, one good and one bad. I am willing to do whatever it takes. As a result, I think the US definitely is the place that I want to take the opportunities to develop myself.