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Beep, beep! Guide master the busy roads of Vietnam. The cars behind you keep honking. The cloud of exhaust fumes from the bus in front of you is suffocating. You’re stuck between two crowds of mopeds, leaving you with barely a foot of wiggle room. It is a never-ending sea of mopeds, cars, buses, and trailers everywhere you look. Vietnamese traffic may seem daunting at first, especially for foreigners. But, not to worry! There is an order to this chaos. With nearly ten years of experience driving mopeds in Vietnam, and after breaking my leg in a crash over the summer, I’ll teach you both the do’s and don’t’s you need to know to conquer these streets. Scale Reigns Supreme Throw out all you know about traffic laws. In Vietnam, the laws of the jungle dictate the rules of the road. Depending on your size, you are either a prey or a predator. To survive, you must respect your position in the food chain. Mark Ashwill, an expat reporter in Vietnam, created a hierarchy of vehicles in the countr...

As a kid, I dreamt of becoming an astronaut. I remember being amazed in first grade when my teachers told me that a Vietnamese astronaut (Pham Tuan) had already been to orbit in 1980. I had dreams going even further; I wanted to grow up and travel to the edge of our solar system in search of a new planet I would get the right to name myself. 14 years later, even after deciding to major in Business, I still love learning more about space. My favorite classes in high school and college were not about business but instead physics and math. So, a book about how Pluto, one of my favorite planets as a kid, got downgraded to a mere dwarf planet intrigued me. After reading ~40% of the book, Mike Brown has exceeded my expectations so far. In the book, he highlights how astronomy is intertwined with human history and societal developments. He writes about how linguistics, like definitions of planets, shaped how astronomy developed and how people saw the world around them. He writes about how tec...

I am a spoiled kid. Before turning eighteen, I had already traveled more of the world and dined at more award-winning restaurants than most people would in their lifetime. When my parents and I discussed coming to USC, they happily agreed with my decision even before they saw the tuition. While I was aware of my privilege, I never fully understood the value of a dollar bill. During my first year at USC, I matured and better understood how much my parents did for me. The cost of living in Los Angeles is three times that of Hanoi, yet my parents still allow me to live comfortably. To show my appreciation to my parents, I asked to work as an accountant in my family’s business that summer. An accountant is someone who handles the “recording and summarizing business and financial transactions and analyzing, verifying, and reporting the results.” As the definition suggests, accounting is a tedious and monotonous job. But this experience was more than just accounting. It was my first job, so ...

  Job Description: Accountant (DRAFT) I’m a spoiled kid. Before turning eighteen, I had already traveled more of the world and dined at more award-winning restaurants than most people would in their lifetime. When I asked my parents to attend USC, they happily agreed without even giving a second thought to the tuition. While I was well aware of my privilege, I never fully understood the value of a dollar bill. During my first year at USC, I matured and better understood how much my parents did for me. Despite living in Los Angeles, where the cost of living is nearly three times Hanoi’s, my parents still allow me to live comfortably. To demonstrate my appreciation and maturity to my parents, I requested to work as an accountant in my family’s business. According to Merriam-Webster, an accountant is responsible for “recording and summarizing business and financial transactions and analyzing, verifying, and reporting the results.” Just as the definition suggests, accounting is a tedio...