Monday, November 18, 2013

TSIC Alum Ha Tran's Story of Success


As one of the inaugural Take Stock In Children Leaders 4 Life Fellows, Ha Tran is currently attending Duke University, where she is pursuing a Neuroscience major and a Global Health minor. With her passion for international health care, Ha hopes to serve the global community as a medical physician in the future. As a proud 2011 graduate of Pace High School, Ha reflects back on her Take Stock In Children experience and attributes much of her success to her mentors and her TSIC family. 

When Ha was 3 years old, her family immigrated to the United States from Vietnam when her father was awarded the prestigious Fulbright scholarship. Through the journey, Ha discovered that education has the power to change lives. She witnessed her parents work 18-hour days to be able to stay in this country, where they knew Ha and her older sister would be able to get a quality education. For Ha's family, education was the key to a better life and the opportunity to get an education was one to be treasured. 

At Duke, Ha is kept busy with classes and her independent research project on the effects of stress on hippocampal and hypothalamic neurogenesis. She also works as a Vietnamese translator, volunteers at the Duke Hospital, and serves as editor for an undergraduate research journal. In her spare time, Ha enjoys having late-night conversations with her friends as they try to navigate their early 20's together and find answers to life's greatest questions. Ha's experiences outside the classroom have shown her that education is not only limited to a textbook, but rather the opportunity to learn is in every country, every experience, and every new conversation.

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