Hometown: Moscow, Russia

High School: Public school, 176 students in graduating class

Nationality: Vietnamese

Gender: Male

GPA: 4.6 out of 5.0

SAT: Reading 800, Math 800, Writing 780

ACT: n/a

SAT Subject Tests Taken: Mathematics Level 2, Physics

Extracurriculars: Creator and instructor of summer programming courses for Vietnamese students in Russia, Participants’ spokesperson of the summer camp for “Trai He 2014” for overseas Vietnamese students, president of EducationUSA Competitive College Club for Russian students who want to apply to colleges in the U.S., programmer of a translation software company VieGrid, winner and participant of Actions for Earth Global Youth Summit 2014

Awards: First place (twice) in Open Olympiad in Programming for students from former USSR countries, first place (twice) in Russian National Olympiad in team programming, second place (three times) in Russian National Olympiad in Informatics, first place (twice) in International Mathematical Tournament of Towns, first place in Moscow Math Olympiad

Major: Computer Science

College statement editing

When I think about a possible future in information technology, I think first about the past, when my parents endured oppression, when I was raised in false freedom.

The story of my parents’ struggles during the Vietnamese Communist upheaval still disturbs me today. In the 1970s, the Communist Party forced my father into the army and confiscated the assets of my mother’s aristocratic family, leaving them in utter poverty. In this desperate and dangerous environment, my parents had to be ruth- less and cynical to survive, setting aside higher ideals and principles.

Though he hated the Communist Party, my father joined it in 1981 to escape the army and get a government job. And 1993, when my father won a government scholarship to study in Russia, we emigrated. There, my family achieved a sort of freedom. Unconstrained by the Vietnamese government, my father co-founded a small clothing factory, rented a one-bedroom apartment, and sent my sister and me to prominent Russian schools.

To some, this story may seem to end happily, and indeed, I’m so grateful for our good fortune. But I’ve often felt uneasy about how my parents had to abandon their selflessness and concern for their community in order to seek their freedom.

My parents were no longer ruthless, but when I looked broadly at Russia and Vietnam, I saw that such material freedom can often prevent true freedom. Nowadays, due to economic liberalization, the upper classes can afford incredible luxuries, yet many of them still retain the same cynical attitudes from the communist era, fending only for themselves, their families, and their prosperity, while ignoring the rigged elections, the crackdowns on dissent, the pervasive underdevelopment. In pursuit of material freedom, they accept their mental cages.

When I first became seriously interested in IT, I sometimes wondered whether I was any different. Was I pursuing distinctions in IT only for my own gain? Is IT just another route to a mental cage? Yet as I progressed in the field, I realized the answer: No.

Without IT, I would never have experienced true freedom: the freedom to seek out and engage with uncensored opinions and shape my own perspective. IT, a field that allows for multiple solutions to the same problem, demands open discussions with friends, teachers, and university professors, all of which have helped me uncage my mind. By addressing and resolving problems with others, I now think openly and flexibly; I feel trust, compassion and concern for them.

An uncaged mind is the first step toward becoming a true citizen again. I often notice how my computer science teachers and classmates are some of the most open-minded people among educated Muscovites. When, for instance, the Kremlin mandated that our school cut math lessons and teach military education instead, we all discussed possible responses before unanimously condemning and rejecting the edict.

There are few places for such free exchange in Russia, even fewer in Vietnam. As I spend my gap year in my native country, I am saddened to see so many brilliant, industrious people, young and old, still mentally caged.

But I also see signs of hope. I have seen how IT changes people the way it changed me. Even in the living room of my Moscow apartment, I have witnessed the transformative power of IT. Last summer, when I held a basic programming course for 15 Vietnamese immigrant students, they barely talked and were hesitant to answer my questions. However, as the one-month course progressed, I saw them open up—their initial shyness faded, and they enthusiastically work together on finding unique solutions. Today, they deal with their everyday problems the same way they solved my algorithmic puzzles: by sharing opinions, compromising solutions, helping each other improve.

IT is a key to unlocking mental cages, a path to community engagement, and my goal is to put it in reach of every Vietnamese.

REVIEW

Truong weaves an engaging narrative about how studying information technology has shaped his understanding of his family’s history, politics in Russia and Vietnam, and freedom. Political essays are a gamble because you never know the opinions of whoever is going to read your paper; Truong succeeds, however, by making his essay extremely personal with his anecdotes and self-reflection.

Truong’s opening is very effective because he signals to the reader that he is going to talk about his hopes for the future and how his past has influenced them. He outlines his family’s experiences and challenges, but then he returns to the present by talking about his concerns for those still living in Vietnam.

While he tries to present the problem of mental imprisonment that he sees in Russia and Vietnam, his criticism comes off as imperious because of his generalizations. Truong comes off his soapbox, however, by making the essay personal again by clearly laying out what he thinks freedom means and how IT has allowed him to achieve it.

Truong’s example of IT students reacting to changes in the school system is vague and impersonal, but his example of leading an IT course for Vietnamese students shows how he has used his studies and passion to help his community.

By the end of his essay, Truong returns to his future and how he wants to use IT to affect change. While his declaration to free the minds of his fellow Vietnamese is grandiose, it is full of passion and determination.

From 50 Successful Harvard Application Essays, 5th Edition edited by the Staff of the Harvard Crimson. Copyright (c) 2017 by the authors and reprinted by permission of St. Martin's Publishing Group.