Unconventional Paths

By: Thu Nguyen

Senior Development Manager, and former 2016 OCA-Greater Houston Local Intern, Thu Nguyen shares how the OCA Internship Program impacted her well-being.

I am a lovechild of engineering. No, really, my parents fell in love through long distance phone calls and faxes about homework. They were Vietnamese immigrants in the ’80s working full time blue-collar jobs to put themselves through college. I was born the year before my mother graduated with honors in electrical engineering from UT El Paso. Their American dream felt within their grasp… until my mother could not find a job and my father kept getting passed over for promotions at work even though he was leading all the projects.

Tired of workplace discrimination, my mother turned to doing nails. My dad took the risk of leaving behind the safety of a corporate job, and my parents opened a nail salon. By the age of ten, I was really good at closing daily sales, translating for my mom, and painting nails. This became my parents’ opportunity to drill in my head, “You don’t want to end up like this do you? You need to be a doctor. You can help people, be your own boss, and have a stable job.”

As it turns out, I hated biology. To procrastinate STEM courses, I found solace in sociology classes. Only after I had failed two biochemistry courses did I wake up to the reality that I was not cut out to be premed. Instead, I loved the study of people and society. Yet, I could never tell my parents I wanted to quit. The concept of disappointing them, and abandoning the only concrete path I knew, gave me so much anxiety that eventually developed into panic attacks.

Meanwhile, I was a campus organizer and fashion blogger — one of those high functioning burnouts who ran away from her problems by doing things other than studying for biochem. One day, the OCA-Greater Houston Chapter invited me to give a talk about Asian American body image. I had never heard of the organization before, but was psyched for my first speaking opportunity. The event went well, and I became curious as to what OCA really did. I started going to their B3 professional development events and was inspired by all of the AAPI speakers who were not doctors, discussing their respective careers, unconventional or just non-STEM. As I began to volunteer with OCA, I found a mentor who recognized my abilities and nurtured them. Under her mentorship, she helped me prove to myself that I could make a career out of the community building that I loved to do so much. Through the OCA-Houston internship, I flourished coordinating civic engagement programs and producing digital media for all the causes I was passionate about.

After my internship was over, I was ignited. For the first time in three years, the fleeting emotions of fulfillment I felt in sociology class filled me up and were here to stay. I joined the OCA-Houston chapter as a student board member and aspired to continue to effect change in my local community. Eventually, I understood the crucial role OCA plays in advancing our community socio-politically and economically. More importantly, I came to see my own potential in being a part of this effort.

I started at Rice University thinking that the only way to pay it forward was through medicine. By the time I graduated, and with the knowledge, training, and support of my OCA family, I realized that I could give back to the world in other ways that I’m much better at. My parents fled a war-torn country looking for freedom and opportunity, only to find it hindered here by discrimination against their skin color and accents. Today, I have the privilege of working to fight against this through my daily work. Not only have I been able to contribute to OCA’s mission by working here, but I’ve been granted opportunities made possible only by being affiliated with OCA. Using the skills and knowledge I have honed through OCA, I have had the honor to host events for museums in New York and DC that have garnered hundreds of attendees each, and produced Houston’s first AAPI cultural and literary magazine.

These successes are proof to my parents, and most importantly myself, that I can indeed make a career out of something I love and care about. If OCA had not taken me in during the peak of my college burnout, I might not even be standing here today. By providing me the opportunity to grow and explore through the local internship, OCA opened my eyes to what it really means to be part of a community and opened my mind to greater ventures. That life-changing experience is what fuels the tenacity that I bring to work at OCA. I hope you are able to join me in paying it forward and enable OCA to continue to provide internships and programs that make a lasting impact for a lifetime.

Originally published at https://www.ocanational.org in December 2019.