The 25-year-old Vietnamese woman, who was born in Nam Dinh, graduated with an excellent bachelor's from Foreign Trade University, majoring in Accounting and Auditing. During her study years, she also received scholarships from her university, KEB HANA Bank, and the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA).

Bui Thi Phuong Thu excellently won a full scholarship for a Master's degree in Finance at the University of Maynooth, Ireland. Photo: Courtesy of the character

Sharing with Vietnam Education Magazine about her decision to study a master's program abroad, Phuong Thu said she has dreamt of studying abroad since her high school years and yearned to broaden her knowledge in her field and experience high-quality education in a developed country.

After 3 years of working for an export company, she shared her own unforgettable experience and it drove her to determine to change the future and orient her new career with a major in Finance.

“I used to work as an auditor for an export company in the northern mountainous region, but at that time the company was about to go bankrupt due to poor financial control. To this day, I could not forget the employee’s worried faces in the days leading up to Tet. That’s when I realized a company can only survive and develop when it has good financial management. I started to want to work as a financial manager for companies instead of just doing an audit to check if the numbers are reasonable," she said.

Phuong Thu said that changing careers, as well as starting her new career will not be easy, especially in the learning process.

She was also aware of the fact that she would have to start from the basics, then improve her in-depth knowledge. However, instead of being discouraged, Thu was determined to improve her capacity with a more difficult curriculum.

“When I was still in university, I already had my basic knowledge about Finance. When I decided to change my career, I both applied to a different company in the Finance department and self-studied. However, I feel that it is not enough, and want to learn more and improve my knowledge. I started to set a goal to study in developed European countries, including Ireland. In the future, I hope that I can use what I have learned to help the small and medium companies in Vietnam," Thu said.

Unlike other universities in Europe, which select masters by interview, the Irish Government's full scholarship assesses candidates' abilities through essays.

Maynooth University. Photo: Wikipedia

Thu completed her 3 three essays including studying plan, what I can contribute to Ireland, and what I can do to promote cooperation between the two countries.

With the thought that she had previous experience in writing essays, she came up with ideas and made an outline for the essay. However, when she asked someone with experience for a review and bits of advice, she had to completely redo it from the start.

“Each scholarship will have different requirements, that’s why the writer should not make the mistake of taking an outline from one essay to another and then changing a few sentences but must find out what people need, and have the right focus on the subject. Besides, the writer also needs to clearly state the content and ideas instead of just stating that they will go to learn new knowledge and return to their homeland to contribute to promoting the economy”, she shared her experience writing the essay.

Particularly with the essay on her contribution to promoting the development of the two countries, Phuong Thu revealed that she had studied very carefully Ireland's agriculture and the needs of the Vietnamese market and published her unique essay about cow’s milk.

Specifically, Ireland is a dairy-exporting country with very good nutritional content and Vietnam is a country with a great demand for milk.

She gave the idea that in the future, the two countries can promote work so that Vietnamese businesses can import quality cow's milk. From there, the economies of both countries can grow and develop strongly.

Ireland is a dairy exporting country with very good nutritional content and Vietnam is a country with a great demand for milk. Photo: edairynews

Phuong Thu also said that she also learned more information about their country’s culture and life through movies and books. Spending time watching movies about the country she is going to study helps her approach and see it more familiarly.

Phuong Thu believed that learning about cultural diversity in various forms will help the admissions party understand that the writer is interested in the culture and people of that country, rather than just aiming for a scholarship.

In September 2023, Phuong Thu will fly to Ireland to study a master's program in Finance at Maynooth University.

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