Male student 'opens' international Olympic gold medal for Bac Ninh province

Nguyen Tuan Phong is the first student from Bac Ninh province to win a gold medal at an international Olympic competition.

Nguyen Tuan Phong, a former student of Bac Ninh High School for the Gifted, has just become a new student at Hanoi University of Science and Technology. At the opening ceremony in early September, the male student represented about 8,000 new students and was honored for his outstanding achievements. He won a silver medal at the 2022 European Physics Olympiad and a bronze medal at the 2023 Asia-Pacific Physics Olympiad.

At the International Physics Olympiad held in Japan in July, Phong was one of two Vietnamese students to win a gold medal and was the contestant with the highest score in the entire delegation. With 37.5/50 points, the Bac Ninh boy ranked 22nd out of 398 contestants from 84 countries and territories.

"When I won the bronze medal at the Asian tournament, I thought I could win gold at an international competition because the Asian competition is always considered more difficult. But I didn't think I would achieve such a good result," Phong said.

Mr. Ha Huy Phuong, Principal of Bac Ninh High School for the Gifted, said Phong was the one who "opened" the gold medal at the international Olympic arena of Bac Ninh province. Right after Phong, another student of the school won the gold medal at the Chemistry Olympiad.

Tuan Phong on the campus of Hanoi University of Science and Technology. Photo: Duong Tam

When he first entered secondary school, Phong wanted to study Math in depth. However, he was unsuccessful in the school's selection exam. In grade 7, the first time he entered the school's laboratory and experimented with the equipment, especially the electrical experiment set, Phong began to love and spend a lot of time on Physics. Phong later won first prize at the provincial level in grade 8 and second prize in grade 9 in this subject.

Passing the Physics class at Bac Ninh High School for the Gifted with the second highest specialized subject score in the class, Phong was trained by teachers to participate in national and international competitions for excellent students.

After 10th grade, when he had learned almost all the knowledge of three years of high school, the male student began to study the "advanced, new, and really difficult" parts. At this time, he became friends with the exam questions from previous years and read more famous books on training excellent students in Physics.

Mr. Pham Dinh Hiep, Phong's homeroom teacher at Bac Ninh Specialized School, assessed that Phong was relatively solid in knowledge since grade 11. Normally, grade 11 students would be weaker when participating in the team with grade 12 students, but Phong and a grade 12 student always competed to win the top position.

According to Mr. Hiep, Phong has a special way of studying, he only writes down what he feels is necessary as he studies. He does not write down the parts that he feels are okay. "Teachers who do not know or are not familiar with him will easily scold him because he does not see much written down, but that is not the case," said Mr. Hiep.

For Phong, mastering the basic knowledge is the most important. He shared that when coming into contact with any knowledge, the first thing is to clearly understand the nature of the phenomena and problems, and prove the formulas to remember them for a long time and deeply. When doing exercises, especially when taking exams, he has some principles, for example, when practicing, he must respect the steps, be careful in measuring, have clear and clean data, prioritize the easy parts to get points, do each part firmly, do not "skip" the exercises or falsify data.

With this way of studying, Phong won second prize at the national level and then a silver medal at the European Physics Olympiad when he was in 11th grade.

Tuan Phong presents flowers to Professor Huynh Quyet Thang, Director of Hanoi University of Science and Technology, on the opening day of September 10. Photo: HUST

By grade 12, Phong was under more pressure as the national excellent student exams, the Asia-Pacific Olympic and international competitions took place back to back. "I only had about a month to review before each exam with three classes a day," Phong said.

However, the male student from Bac Ninh is very confident in his knowledge. During the regional and international competitions, and training with friends from other provinces and cities, Phong had no problems with the lesson content. The male student also spent time playing chess online for entertainment, while also practicing tactical thinking and quick thinking.

At the Asia-Pacific Physics Olympiad held in Mongolia, despite an incident that forced a contestant doing an electrical experiment to start over and lose about 10 more minutes, Phong was still confident in completing the test well to win a bronze medal - the best result achieved by a Vietnamese student this year.

For the international exam, each theory and practice test lasted 5 hours, which was considered interesting but long enough for Phong to remember all the content of each test. However, he did it smoothly because he followed the set rules and successfully changed the color of the medal as planned.

When registering for university, Phong applied for the Control and Automation Engineering major at Hanoi University of Science and Technology. In fact, with his achievements, Phong could have been admitted to the hottest major at the school, Information Technology. Many people also advised him to choose this major. However, Phong believes that "you should choose a major based on your interests and existing foundation instead of pursuing a hot major but not having passion for it".

Phong also cherishes the dream of studying abroad. He is focusing on learning English to take the IELTS test before applying for a scholarship. His desired destination is the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST).

Vnexpress.net