Lena Thu Phuong Nguyen (Oriental Studies, 2005)

Lena read Oriental Studies at Hertford before going on to do further study in International Development. Following voluntary work in Vietnam she now works for UNICEF as a Social Policy Expert.

I grew up in Poland as a daughter of Vietnamese immigrants. We arrived in Warsaw on the eve of the collapse of the Iron Curtain. Fifteen years later, Poland joined the European Union, and suddenly applying for a university in the UK, and perhaps even Oxford, became a real possibility.

I attended a state school, where, though teachers were extremely supportive, there was at the time little by way of resources to help us write personal statements, navigate UCAS, or prepare for admissions interviews. Needless to say, I did not know how to choose a college, but from the first day I felt that the friendly and inclusive Hertford was home. Hertford didn’t have a tutor for Chinese Studies but I always had the support of Bjarke Frellesvig, and always felt there was a lot of attention devoted to each student academically and personally. I remember at one of the Orientalists’ drinks, perhaps towards the end of my second year, a tutor asked whether I still did creative writing – something we talked about during my admissions interview.

After Hertford, inspired by my dissertation research on inequalities faced by the children of rural-urban migrants in China, I went on to study International Development. From there, I took a delayed gap year in Vietnam, where I got involved in a project documenting how schools in disadvantaged districts managed funding from international organisations. This then led to a job with UNICEF, which continued for the next six years, taking me on different assignments to various countries, ranging from researching the implementation of children’s rights while based in the hills of Tuscany, to supporting external communications in Thailand and the Philippines, to overseeing a public financial management support programme for the social welfare ministry in Myanmar (Burma). Earlier this year I moved to Berlin with my husband and I’m now freelancing as an international development consultant. This gives me the flexibility to pursue my other interests (such as creative writing).

I always think of the four years spent at Hertford with great fondness and cherish the friendships I made there, with talented musicians – of which Hertford has so many – or writers, who also happened to excel in physics or archaeology. I’ve often been reminded what a privilege it is to have spent one’s formative years in a nurturing environment that has opened for me so many possibilities and has equipped me with the confidence and skills to make the most out of them.