Giving Back

Vinh Nguyen planned to be an electrical engineer before a part-time job debugging computers his freshman year changed his mind. "It was the lack of social interaction," he says. "It was just you and a desk." He recalled satisfaction he received helping fellow students grasp math concepts as a peer-mentor in high school. So after discovering teachHOUSTON, he now plans to major in math.

In his fourth semester in the program, Vinh says benefits include beginning to teach in his first semester and gaining elementary, middle and high school teaching experience. And he’s surprised that he enjoys teaching even more than mentoring: "Before I was just affecting one student. Now I influence a bigger group."

Assigned to a Strafford High School math classroom, he looks forward to giving back to the Spring Branch Independent School District, where he graduated in the top 5 percent from Spring Woods High School. Vinh, who immigrated to the U.S. from Vietnam at age 5, received a UH Academic Excellence Scholarship. TeachHOUSTON also recently awarded him a scholarship, which helped him focus on his studies and pay for gasoline.

Foregoing a potentially lucrative engineering career for one in teaching was an easy decision, he says: "I would have been less happy."