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Tàu Điện Ngầm Hồng Hà (Red River Metro) One dollar. That was all the money my dad had at 17 after dropping out of school and being forced to make a living for himself. He spent that dollar on a bus ticket to take him from his hometown in rural Vietnam to Hanoi, the capital. He worked tirelessly in the Chợ Xuân night market for years before acquiring enough money to start his own business, which would flourish over the following decades. 27 years later, that singular dollar had snowballed into something big enough to enable me to fly across the Pacific Ocean and attend USC. If that bus route didn’t exist, or my dad didn’t have enough money to afford the ticket, where would I be today? My dad’s story illustrates the importance of access to transportation – something that is not equally given to everyone. I have witnessed family members, relatives, and friends forced to turn down work opportunities, even their dream jobs, simply because it cost too much or took too long to travel to and f...

The quote and The Blue Sweater by Jacqueline Novogratz made me think about my dad. My dad grew up in poverty. My grandma passed away from cancer when my dad was just fourteen because our family didn’t have enough money to cover her medical treatment. But despite growing up in poverty and being painfully aware of the tribulations that come with poverty, my dad doesn’t like charity and blindly giving to the poor. My dad used to say to me: “Our family grew up poor because we had no choice. But many others are poor because they were stupid, reckless, selfish, or self-destructive.” My dad was trying to explain that poverty is not a black-and-white matter. Charity shouldn’t be simply about giving money to the poor. After all, some poor people—like my great-grandfather, who gambled away his wife, kids, and all our family possessions—don’t deserve even a cent from charity. If we want to alleviate poverty, we should help the right people and do things that can lead to long-lasting, sustainable...

Q W E R T Y. For anyone who doesn’t live under a rock, this string of letters will immediately ring a bell – it’s the first six keys on the top row of our keyboards! The QWERTY keyboard layout is so ingrained into our society that using it feels like second nature. But have you ever wondered, “Why QWERTY?” Christopher Sholes, an American newspaper editor and printer, devised the QWERTY layout in the early 1870s. The original layout was just two rows of characters arranged like the following: - 3 5 7 9 N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 2 4 6 8 . A B C D E F G H I J K L M If we knew nothing about keyboards or computers, this layout makes perfect sense. After all, the letters are ordered alphabetically from left to right! But as anyone who has tried to search anything on a TV would tell you, using an alphabetized keyboard is a horror… Over the next several decades, Sholes adjusted the layout to get what we are familiar with today: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 - = Q W E R T Y U I O P [ ] \ A S D F G H J K ...

Ali Abdaal, Feel Good Productivity Book Review Would you believe me if I told you I was diagnosed with depression and bipolar disorder in tenth grade? That I had weekly therapy sessions every Thursday at 4:00 pm? Many people who I’ve met at USC and told this to don’t quite believe me. Since coming to college, I have completely changed as a person. I’ve learned to be happier, more easy-going, and less prideful. For this assignment, I chose to read Ali Abdaal’s Feel-Good Productivity to see if I could learn more about my personal growth and how I can avoid reverting to my old ways in the future. Reading Feel-Good Productivity felt like talking to a therapist. When I first started reading the book, I was a little disappointed. It seemed like Ali was just reiterating things I already knew about productivity. But as I got deeper into the book, I realized that Ali never intended to teach me anything new in the first place. Rather, he was just trying to help me clarify, explain, and compartm...

Ali Abdaal, Feel-Good Productivity I used to have an unhealthy obsession with being productive. Until two years ago, I went to sleep every night reflecting on and grading my productivity that day. I would nitpick this, criticize that, and stress that I needed to work more to get what I wanted. Fortunately, I broke away from this cycle last year by forcing myself to work less and spend more time on my hobbies. Since then, I’ve been feeling so much happier. And, despite studying significantly less, my grades have not dropped at all. This experience forced me to reconsider my perception of productivity and reassess how I approached studying and work. I chose to read Ali Abdaal’s Feel-Good Productivity because I wanted to see if it could teach me more about this recent change I’ve undergone. Until now, I’ve been reluctant to read self-help books because they always seem to highlight grandiose themes that feel distant and unachievable. However, based on the synopsis, this book seemed inter...

  To: Clark Hansen, CEO of Anima Mundi Development Partners From: Hai Tran, Research and Development Date: October 18th, 2024 Subject: Investment Opportunity: Neste Executive Summary I strongly recommend that AMDP invest in Neste, a public Finnish oil company specializing in producing renewable diesel as a substitute for fossil fuels. Since 2019, Neste has already helped its customers reduce 50 million tons of GHG emissions, and it plans to scale its environmental impact even further.  In this memo, I will demonstrate how Neste meets AMDP’s investment criteria and why it will flourish in the future despite current challenges. This memo includes: Summary of AMDP’s investment criteria Overview of Neste’s background and claims Analysis of Neste’s financials and claims Final recommendation AMDP Investment Criteria At AMPD, our mission is to support businesses that positively impact our planet. In alignment with this mission, our investment strategy is based on four k...