{"id":14111,"date":"2010-05-06T16:51:23","date_gmt":"2010-05-06T20:51:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=14111"},"modified":"2011-05-31T12:42:33","modified_gmt":"2011-05-31T16:42:33","slug":"class-of-2010-bieu-tran-college-of-liberal-arts-and-sciences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2010\/05\/class-of-2010-bieu-tran-college-of-liberal-arts-and-sciences\/","title":{"rendered":"Class of 2010: Bieu Tran, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"<p>Bieu<\/a>
Bieu Tran. Photo by Frank Dahlmeyer<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Philosophy and political science major Bieu Tran grew up in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Living under a communist regime, he was exposed to politics at a young age.<\/p>\n

He remembers staying with his grandparents in an impoverished area, and knowing that nothing could be done to help them.<\/p>\n

\u201cGrowing up, I saw people suffer and I saw people who had the potential to do great things but were victims of the system,\u201d Tran says.<\/p>\n

He also has fond memories of his father hiding a radio in their home in order to listen to the BBC.<\/p>\n

When he moved to the United States in 1999, he had a keen appreciation of the rights that Americans have.<\/p>\n

His family settled in Bridgeport, where he attended inner city schools.<\/p>\n

When Tran entered UConn in 2006, as a participant in the Center for Academic Programs, he started out as an agricultural and natural sciences major.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to be a farmer but that didn\u2019t work out well. I struggled in my first semester,\u201d Tran says.<\/p>\n

After recognizing his interest in political philosophy, he was able to finish his political science major his sophomore year. That spring, he studied abroad at the National University of Singapore.<\/p>\n

During his career at UConn, Tran has managed to achieve a lot. His plan of study included philosophy, politics, and economics, wrote an honors thesis in philosophy, and graduated with degrees in both political science and philosophy (Phi Kappa Phi honor distinction).<\/p>\n

Last year he was nominated for Rhodes and Marshall Scholarships as well as the Gates Cambridge Scholarship. He was also a senator with the Undergraduate Student Government representing commuter students, but gave up that position when he moved to campus and became a community assistant at Hilltop residence halls. And he published a paper on Chinese philosophy in a journal at the University of Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy background really fuels me,\u201d Tran says. \u201cLiving here and knowing that I can make a change and be heard alters my outlook on things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Next fall Tran will attend the University of St. Andrews in Scotland to study for the M.Litt. and Ph.D. degrees in philosophy.<\/p>\n

Coming from a family of engineers and business people, Tran has been pressured to change his plans. But he\u2019s adamant about his career choice.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel that it is important for people to discover their passion,\u201d he says, \u201cbecause without that, you\u2019ll be lost.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Graduating senior Bieu Tran became interested in politics early in life \u2013 in Vietnam.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[43],"class_list":["post-14111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-11 03:58:40","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14111"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14111\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37490,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14111\/revisions\/37490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14111"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=14111"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=14111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}