Returning to class after an incomplete year

After skipping class for a year, working as a ship’s steward, and entering a factory as a laborer, Quen is stronger than her years. Yet, the day he received his admission notice to Ho Chi Minh City University of Physical Education and Sports, the 19-year-old boy burst into tears.

back and forth to earn a living

Last year, Quen passed the Information Technology subject, which is the subject you like and wish to pursue. Quen’s family is also very proud. For the Khmer people in the poor border commune of Hoa Hiep, Tan Bien District (Tay Ninh), your hometown, this is also a very special result.

I was also excited for the nomination, but the happy days passed quickly. Before the second semester even started, Quen had to leave school because she could not find the money to pay her tuition. The amount of more than 17 million VND was too much for you at that time, and it was also the compulsion of Mr. Sok Khoan and Ms. Bo Za Bon – Kwen’s parents.

Stomach bleeding and stomach ulcers often trouble Ba Quyen. There is no improvement in my mother’s condition as she is suffering from chronic bone and joint disease and is unable to do anything except move around the house. Luckily, someone hired her to weave and put soil in pots so that the plants could have some money to go to the fields.

Quyen has an older sister who is unemployed and raising a young child and a half-sister who is in her second year studying nursing in Ho Chi Minh City.

While leaving the lecture hall, Quyen was instructed by people in her neighborhood to apply for a job at a leather shoe factory in Dong Nai. After four months of working life, you decide to leave your job.

Luckily I got a second job at a computer store in Hoc Mon district (HCMC), which seems somewhat related to my previous passion. During the day, he works at a store with his brothers to learn filming and editing, and in the afternoon, works as a waiter at a snail shop in the Kwan area.

Computer store pays salary of 4 million VND, snail shop earns more than 2 million VND. But you can hardly have any rest when each day starts at dawn and ends only when the roads are quiet and there are no cars.

Feeling sorry for the hard-working employee, the computer store director called to talk and assigned Quen the job of the store’s shipper.

So the income is also more stable. Quen started saving, leaving a little for herself and sending most of it back to her mother. The right to deduct a few hundred rupees every month to fulfill the dream of returning to university.

should go to school

During the days of struggling to make ends meet, Quen became even more determined to return to the classroom. He is old enough to see that the journey ahead is not worth it for him and that he cannot rely on anyone but his own efforts. But the desire is always big enough!

Because he was once free from his studies, the young man was more cautious when calculating the day when he would return. The fear of not having money to pay tuition still remains. After a lot of thought, he chose a school with low tuition, based on his own merits.

Under the current circumstances, it is difficult for Quen to pursue the information technology industry as his passion. Instead, you submit your application to the Head of Sports Training (Badminton), Department of Sports Training at Ho Chi Minh City University of Physical Education and Sports.

With tuition fees of around 20 million VND/school year, it is not small, but you better believe there will be a way. Quyen was accepted as a teaching assistant at a badminton court in Tan Binh District.

The second freshman’s plan was as follows: Outside of class, while he went to the gym, he would borrow a friend’s motorcycle to work as a shipper and sell it online to earn extra money from his hometown. Rice used to import paper products. Kwen’s TikTok channel, which teaches badminton skills, has just been established, but has thousands of interactions, with many clips trending.

In addition to excellent student results for 12 consecutive years, badminton is a sport that brings you a great collection of medals in several tournaments in Tay Ninh, Ho Chi Minh City and even in the 2022 National Defense Sports Festival. But the struggle to make a living forced him to put aside that pleasure temporarily.

“It is very difficult, why do you have to insist on going to school?”, the sudden question seemed to ease the pain. Quen raised his eyes to the blue sky, smiled slightly, and then a few moments later mustered up the courage to speak.

But those days of struggling to make a living everywhere, from working as a laborer, to a restaurant server, to a shipper, helped Quen realize more clearly that if If he doesn’t study, life will always be like this.