STUDYING AT A SPECIALIZED SCHOOL AND… BEING FORCED TO DROP OUT OF SCHOOL
Tran Khanh Ha (40 years old), is currently a United Nations expert. Since January 2019, he has been working at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) in Ethiopia. He has since moved to the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) Pacific Branch in Fiji since September 2021.
Mr. Tran Khanh Ha
Possessing a dream job for many people, few people know that Ha's previous educational path had unusual turns and beginnings. Ha was a former student of class A (math, physics, chemistry) at Le Hong Phong High School for the Gifted (HCMC). With his strengths in natural sciences, he chose to take the entrance exam to the Faculty of Information Technology at the University of Natural Sciences (HCMC National University). With excellent scores in the entrance exam, Ha was admitted and also received an entrance scholarship from the school.
But after only the first semester, Ha applied to reserve his study results to focus on studying English. From a specialized student in the A group who only scored 6.5 points in English in the high school graduation exam, after 6 months he got an IELTS 6.0 certificate. Then at the beginning of the second year, Ha returned to school but did not take the final exam because he had chosen a new direction: studying abroad. Ha said: "I decided to study abroad but did not ask to stop studying, nor did I go to school to withdraw my application. After the academic warnings because of no score, according to the academic regulations, I received a notice that I was forced to leave school."
Talking more about his decision to study abroad, he said: "At first, I had no intention of studying abroad, partly because my family did not have the means. But when I entered university, my family's economic conditions had improved. I was also partly motivated by my friends when in a class of about 50 people, more than 30 of them were studying abroad." In the end, Ha became a student majoring in computer science and information technology at Auckland University of Technology (New Zealand).
In 2006, after completing his university degree, Ha returned to Vietnam and became a programmer for Prudential Life Insurance Company. Two years later, he once again decided to stop working to pursue higher education. In 2009, after completing his MBA at RMIT University Vietnam, Ha traveled for half a year and then joined Ben Thanh Corporation as an IT manager, responsible for managing the company's infrastructure and IT systems. During his 10 years working here, he held several positions related to marketing, strategy development, etc.
RECRUITMENT PROCESS LAST 3 YEARS
In early 2014, Ha happened to read a friend's post about a job opportunity called the "United Nations Young Professionals Programme" (UN YPP). The program is for candidates from countries that have little or no presence on the UN job map. At that time, Vietnam was still on the list of candidates to be added. True to the requirements of the information technology position, Ha decided to try her hand even though she knew she would face fierce competition.
Mr. Tran Khanh Ha when working at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) in Ethiopia
As expected, he had to go through many rounds of the application process. In the first round, candidates created a profile on the United Nations' online website. Just from the application screening round, each country had an average of approximately 200 valid applications. According to the United Nations' statistics that year, the world had about 50,000 applications from many countries and territories. Ha, along with more than 100 other Vietnamese people, received invitations to take the centralized exam in round 2. In December 2014, he flew to Hanoi to take part in the centralized exam worldwide, held in the US, with the same questions and the same time, lasting more than 4 hours from 9pm to 1am the next morning. All the exam papers from round 2 were sealed and brought back to New York (USA) for grading to select about 600 people to continue to round 3, including Ha.
Then, the final interview took place in 2015. In a 30-minute online interview about job proficiency skills, he was highly rated by 4 judges. A few months later, he received a notice that he was one of 13 people in the information technology field recruited to work for the United Nations.
However, Mr. Ha said: "The candidate recruitment process has been completed but I am not yet an official employee of the United Nations. According to the organization's process, the list of recruited candidates is valid for 2 years. The job placement will be based on the actual needs of the organization. After 2 years, if the candidate has not been placed, the recruitment result will be canceled and the candidate will need to participate in the recruitment process again from the beginning." After 2 years of not being assigned a job, Ha thought that everything would just stop as the initial thought of "trying it out". But then luck smiled, the result was extended for 1 more year and Ha was "called" by the United Nations in 2018.
CHANGE YOUR VIEW OF THE WORLD AND LIFE VALUES
In the first month of 2019, Ha officially became a United Nations expert. In that recruitment round, Ha was the only Vietnamese candidate selected. He said that out of the total of about 42,000 employees working for this organization, Vietnamese people account for a very low percentage. "The presence of Vietnamese people on the United Nations job map is very small. When I went to Africa, I was also the only Vietnamese person at the United Nations expert level at UNECA," Ha added.
"A lot" is the phrase Mr. Ha used to answer the question about what he gets from his current job. In his role as program manager in Fiji, he is currently paid about 50,000 USD per year, or about 100 million VND/month. In addition, the organization supports 80% of his children's tuition fees, and every 2 years the whole family is sponsored for a round trip to Vietnam. But that's not all, according to him: "I will continue to stick with this job because of its international service nature."
Sharing more about his current job, he said that, in line with the United Nations’ sustainable development goals, the work aims to enhance sustainable economic development, preserve and promote culture, reduce poverty, enhance human rights, gender equality, etc. He himself previously paid little attention to these goals. But with his current job, his perspective on the world and on life values has changed.
The simplest example of change, the UN expert said: "Before going to Africa, I might have thought it was a poor continent, hot climate, many black people... But when I got there, I realized that they are very diverse in culture, skin color and climate with areas covered in snow. Then, after traveling a lot, I realized that Vietnam, although not yet strongly developed, is a wonderful destination compared to many places in the world. If I hadn't gone, I certainly wouldn't have changed my perception of the whole world like that."
Source link
Comment (0)