Sitting on this very chair, I have travelled across the globe, making new friends and sharing remarkable ideas with them. Although we couldn’t experience YYGS on the Yale campus, the alumni, participants and staff are the real YYGS community - one that will inspire and excite young leaders to pioneer the world of tomorrow. Without YYGS, I wouldn’t have been part of this strong alumni community.
YYGS, has made me a more confident and aware individual. I am able to speak in front of groups without the anxious feeling that I use to have. I am also able to effectively communicate and share my ideas and thoughts without doubting or second guessing myself. This was a life changing experience for me. It is my sincere hope that others in my community will take advantage of this opportunity.
My family was more geographically diverse than any group I had ever been a part of, and I was constantly amazed at how the country in which a family member lived enabled them to raise a perspective completely alien to me. In breakout discussions, I was constantly reminded of just how incomplete my worldview was. What made my family so special was that we developed a group understanding of every individual’s restricted perspectives, and recognized the beautiful and complete mosaic of intellects we could create through collaborative dialogue.
Before participating in the program, I only had a faint idea of what the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were and how they could be achieved. Thembi Gausi’s seminar, Using Theatre and the Arts to Change the World, did not only give me a deeper understanding of the SDGs, but also introduced me to the role that theatre and arts could play in the achievement of the goals. I also had the opportunity to explore my love for the environment and sustainability through the lecture on green energy.
This experience solidified my goals and taught me to advocate for what I want in life. I was exposed to diverse points of view that I would not normally understand because of my somewhat sheltered life. But, it was in the sharing of narratives that I realized people can achieve what they dream.
At the beginning of YYGS, I felt rather overwhelmed by the English-speaking community. I, for the first time, realized that English was not the well-celebrated language to master, as commonly thought in Vietnam, but merely a language that many had taken for granted since birth. Hence, there were times when I was embarrassed as I stumbled for words. Later on, I heard from other students that they also had the same struggle, even the instructors.
YYGS allowed me to develop an academic relationship with people worldwide and grow within an educational space where I contributed and discussed topics of my interest. It has allowed me to build and refine my critical thinking, communication, resilience, and other skills. Since the program, my interest in making a positive impact around me and my country has grown. I learned a lot about teamwork and how a good team performs its best when there is respect for everyone’s culture, attitudes, thoughts, and relationships.
In any given breakout room, I would find myself with classmates from Bhutan, Canada, China, Egypt, Kenya, South Korea, Tajikistan, Tanzania, the UK, etc. The list goes on. And to think that we were all connected by the powers of a single Zoom room? Magic. Collaborating with peers from all over the world opened my eyes to how every student came from different walks of life.
I learned so much at YYGS, and even though I was already pretty familiar with most of the topics of the lectures I attended, the way the professors talked about them encouraged me to think deeper, and I gained a new understanding for the issues they talked about.
The lecture offered by Professor Thomas C. Duffy will never leave my heart. Literally, as he taught us how to identify pathologies of the heart, lungs and stomach through sound, while comparing it with the sound of instruments. YYGS truly changed my view towards learning, as it taught me about the importance of interdiscipline and acquiring a global perspective in order to solve the several challenges that humanity faces in the 21st century.
