Spring all came around Doors opened and greeted Lassies in new clothes Pink cheeks, joyful smiles (A spring poem by Nguyen Binh) The Tet atmosphere has been in the air in every corner, and everything in 2016 shall be bid goodbye and welcome the new year 2017 along with new clothes, smiles, and new hopes in the spring words of Nguyen Binh. Being a lover of his poetry, I’m always optimistic and welcome the new. But it can be said we, in 2016, have experienced a lot of volatility and concerns. As a person working in the field of education and also a designing engineer, I would like to share a little feeling to the old year and a few words to the new year with the young. Nearly 8 years of university teaching and the opportunity to go to many places, be in contact with many people, I have also seen a lot of difficulties that people are suffering, but I realized that 2016 has been the year our homeland devastated the worst by humanmade and natural disasters in which humanmade ones probably outweigh. And how the reactions of the students against these impacts have been, do you know? Very few students have had their own voice and they are learning in a dogmatic way, and have not dared to tell the truth the fact is that their families in four provinces in the central part where have been affected directly by the disaster of environmental pollution caused by the Formosa company. Some people asked me: “Mr.Sau, have we got preferential tuition as affected such a loss?” It is very difficult for me to answer it. What we can see here ! we are really haunted by begging and giving. It was this mentality that there are still plenty of students are passive, do not take the initiative in seeking a path for themselves in an open world in terms of information. Students still see faculty as the only source of knowledge for their occupations, and as the truth of success. Talking about disadvantages of education or society will be redundant because there have been many articles with specific analysis on this issue and the suggestions for the young intellectuals what they should do in this difficult period. The urgent message in 2017, what would we do so that each of us will be better? In my opinion you should learn English. For engineering majors, you should find drawings, and videos from Youtube to watch. That’s my way to feel excited about English, and once being excited, then we will learn better. With nearly two years of experience participating in infrastructure projects in the US and comparing to the situation in Vietnam, I realized one thing that technical areas and urban infrastructure fields have not been taken seriously, make without adequate attention. Big ideas need to start from the smallest details, the big picture is drawn from small strokes. That is the fact suggesting what young engineers should learn about and how to design in order to approach the levels of higher standards as other countries. Therefore, one more advice for students is to learn from the basics, enjoy each figure you design and every detail of drawings you create, and to really understand it. Following that, you would study more about urban planning and infrastructure design in the conception of humane manner and in the purpose of serving community. To make it short, we should be proud of what we finish as well as what refuse to do. That goes along with your expertise knowledge, the requirements of investors for some non-technical elements and your refusal skills in some cases. And these abilities will help you become more mature and be seasoned in the role of a design consultant. In my opinion, this time, at the end of a year, we should go to the bookstore and buy books to read on Tet holiday and ponder over things for your life. Let’s take a new step for the next journey of the life.
