Dr. Nguyen Dinh Uyen has left his well-paid job with the US Department of Defence to resettle in Vietnam with his family.
After emigrating to the US at the age of 14, Uyen, as a youth, worked hard at odd jobs to pay for his own education up through the post-graduate level.
Having graduated with a major in electronics and telecommunications, Dr. Nguyen Dinh Uyen took a job with the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and later on was promoted to a senior technical counsellor for the US Department of Defence.
After 15 years devoted to this special job with a stable and high income--a dream for many Americans--he decided to leave it and return to Vietnam to work for the Ho Chi Minh City International University under the municipal National University.
Uyen said he made the decision after a consultancy workshop on overseas education in Hanoi in 2006. A Vietnamese-born teacher who was living and working overseas was advising a young Vietnamese student to return home at the conclusion of his studies abroad. This prompted the student to ask, “Why didn’t you return?”.
“The question has stirred up my dream to return to my native-land although I understood that numerous difficulties were ahead,” said the VIP-turned teacher.
In 2008 he filled a vacancy at the HCM City International University.
He apparently faced suspicions about a possibility for his family’s long-term residency in Vietnam, but he declines to comment directly on the issue. He simply recounted that he was required to make a written commitment to keep secret all the classified details of his job at the Department of Defence as a condition for being allowed to leave.
“Signing that commitment also meant that I had blocked my way back. The only solution now is Vietnam, and when we have only one way out, there’s no point mulling over other options,” concluded the professor./.
After emigrating to the US at the age of 14, Uyen, as a youth, worked hard at odd jobs to pay for his own education up through the post-graduate level.
Having graduated with a major in electronics and telecommunications, Dr. Nguyen Dinh Uyen took a job with the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and later on was promoted to a senior technical counsellor for the US Department of Defence.
After 15 years devoted to this special job with a stable and high income--a dream for many Americans--he decided to leave it and return to Vietnam to work for the Ho Chi Minh City International University under the municipal National University.
Uyen said he made the decision after a consultancy workshop on overseas education in Hanoi in 2006. A Vietnamese-born teacher who was living and working overseas was advising a young Vietnamese student to return home at the conclusion of his studies abroad. This prompted the student to ask, “Why didn’t you return?”.
“The question has stirred up my dream to return to my native-land although I understood that numerous difficulties were ahead,” said the VIP-turned teacher.
In 2008 he filled a vacancy at the HCM City International University.
He apparently faced suspicions about a possibility for his family’s long-term residency in Vietnam, but he declines to comment directly on the issue. He simply recounted that he was required to make a written commitment to keep secret all the classified details of his job at the Department of Defence as a condition for being allowed to leave.
“Signing that commitment also meant that I had blocked my way back. The only solution now is Vietnam, and when we have only one way out, there’s no point mulling over other options,” concluded the professor./.
