By Jim Sheahan
Bard College Sports Information Director
NOTE: The Senior Close-Up is an occasional feature on the Bard Athletics web site, with the focus being the life of a student-athlete at Bard. Here, every student must complete a Senior Project to graduate. The Senior Project is an original, individual, focused project growing out of the student’s cumulative academic experiences. Preparation begins in the junior year, and one course each semester in the senior year is devoted entirely to the Senior Project. The student submits the completed project to a committee of three professors and participates with them in a Senior Project Review.
Fiona Do Thi’s parents left Vietnam for Warsaw, Poland, more than 20 years ago. They had two children, including one-year-old Fiona, and not much else.
They quickly became part of the growing Vietnamese community in Warsaw, found ways to get food on the table, and tried to raise their children with intelligence and humility.
Now a senior at Bard College, Fiona talks about her parents with reverence and pride. Ha and Hung, her mother and father, have built a stable life for themselves back in Warsaw, as has her older brother, Michael.
Fiona feels gratitude for the sacrifices her family has made so that she can pursue her dreams in the United States. And she doesn’t consider herself a success just yet, although some might beg to differ.
She grew up in Warsaw, learning to speak Polish, Vietnamese and English at home and in school.
“I love that I grew up in Poland because, being Vietnamese, it exposed me to two very different cultures,” she said. “I think it has made me into a person who always tries to look at things from more global perspective.”
She’s right. It has driven her to learn, to travel, and to push the edge of her academic abilities. By the time she was in high school in Warsaw, with encouragement from her parents and her brother, she was enamored with the idea of studying in the United States.
“I wanted an educational environment with a lot of students from a lot of different counties,” she said. “That just interested me. That’s how I was raised. I was taught to see things from different perspectives, and going to America would take that experience a little further.”
She had to prepare for the Scholastic Assessment Test and go through the process of applying to be a student in the United States. An excellent student from the start, particularly in mathematics, she got through the process and was ready to study abroad.
She earned the Levy Economics Scholarship from Bard, which grants several four-year scholarships to outstanding seniors planning to major in Economics.
Fiona accepted and flew to New York City, eager to visit Bard for the first time. She’d never been on campus before.
“I made friends right away during L&T,” she said, referring to the Language and Thinking Program all first-year Bard students must complete. “I never really struggled with language but the writing-based courses were tough for me in that first semester.”
It was also during L&T that a group of students set up a volleyball net in the quad, and some of them were members of the men’s and women’s varsity teams here. They told Fiona after seeing her play that she should meet coach Mike Abalos.
She did, and she’s been a three-year varsity player for the Raptors.
“I was concerned about the time commitment,” Fiona said. “It was really two hours a day, six days a week, and I found that when I really looked at it, I had the time. The girls on the team were really nice and I made many friends.”
She excelled academically as well, and she was driven to take full advantage of the breadth of offerings at Bard.
“Being at Bard, I used the opportunity as a freshman to learn Chinese, and as part of the program I went to China in the summer. I never learned a language so fast before." Fiona said. "I like the liberal arts education in the U.S. because it lets you explore a lot of different fields along with what you really want to study."
The following year, through the Bard Globalization and International Affairs program in New York City, she started an internship at the World Federalist Movement-Institute for Global Policy, and finished that semester as and U.N. Reform & Elections intern, spending some days at the United Nations, writing reports and updating a web site.
Bard was offering her the experience she sought.
Back at school, she was enjoying her Mathematics classes just about as much as her Economics classes, and considered changing her major. Her academic performance allowed her to apply for an receive a Distinguished Scientist Scholarship from Bard – money reserved for only the most outstanding academic candidates. She successfully switched majors from Economics to Mathematics.
"I realized that I learn very quickly and I'm good with numbers," Fiona said. “I’ve been really focused on math, and it feels good to have made the right decision.”
Fiona’s Senior Project has yet to be narrowed down, but she is determined to have it involve applying mathematics to other fields.
“I'm planning on going to grad school for Applied Math,” Fiona said. “As a professional career, I would like to do something in risk management or actuarial science, or maybe business consulting."
In addition to keeping her studies going and playing on the women's volleyball team, Fiona is a tutor and course assistant in Mathematics, as well as a Peer Counselor. Peer Counselors live in residential units on campus and serve as leaders and resources for their residents.
Fiona talks to her family every couple of weeks.
“This is what drives me,” Fiona said. “They had nothing, and now they live a comfortable life. My brother was always my role model. He's a big part of how I was raised and the person I've become. He's always been my guide.
"They made sacrifices for me, and I'll always be grateful," she concluded.
