TEACHING AN IT COURSE AT TRAVINH UNIVERSITY

TEACHING AN IT COURSE AT TRAVINH UNIVERSITY: IMPRESSIONS OF A COOPERANT
Mario D'Amico, Ph.D.

I entered Vietnam on June 28th, 2010 and began my three hour drive towards the south region of what is considered as one of the poorest areas of Vietnam - the province of Tra Vinh. The visit was timely, having spent much of the past twenty years focusing on family and education. This was the perfect way to contribute to the growth of a developing country – and what better way than through the sharing of knowledge and education which had helped me earn a living for so many years. So I volunteered to teach a course at Tra Vinh University (TVU).

I taught a course to third year IT students, in the IT department. The course was aimed at exposing the students to topics in enterprise development, from distributed computing, to development across personal handheld devices. The facilities where comfortably air-conditioned, equipped with wireless and wired network, which allowed me to occasionally project my family (wife, son, and daughter) on the big screen through Skype. This was the perfect ice-breaker allowing the class and my family to greet each other every few days.

There were as many male students as females in the class and the students were generally shy and reserved at first but quickly opened up, entering their more natural giggly and at times playful characters. They soaked up the course material like sponges, clicking and typing with the usual speed of teenagers and young adults while multitasking between email sites, messenger applications, and other social networking websites.

The TVU staff was always ready with offers of accommodation, whether for food, coffee, or a visit to some local tourist attraction. As for food, I ate whatever I was offered and ate wherever I was brought - from street food booths to outside restaurants. I ate varied foods from vegetables mixed with sliced crunchy pig’s ears to the more famous Pho soup.

On the last day of class I submitted an exam to the TVU staff for translation and was offered by the students a visit to several of the local Pagoda’s. We exchanged gifts, hugs, and email addresses and promised to stay in contact.

I left the peaceful area of Tra Vinh (by-the-way I was told that Tra Vinh meant ‘peaceful place’) three weeks after arriving and headed towards the busy-booming city of Ho Chi Minh as a guest in the home of a very successful software entrepreneur.

Despite the contrast I encountered, from the poorer Tra Vinh region to the more up-and-coming Ho Chi Minh City, one fact remained constant throughout my visit and that was the modesty, warmth, and simplicity of the Vietnamese people.

Chào,

Mario D’Amico, Ph.D.