Meet the male student who won two international gold medals and just won a scholarship to the world's leading technology institute

Dinh Quang Hieu is not a strange name to the scientific community, especially in the field of Chemistry, as he has continuously won gold medals at the International Chemistry Olympiad in 2016 and 2017.

Of those two times, I was more impressed with the gold medal that Hieu brought home in 2016, perhaps partly because it was his first time, and partly because Hieu was the youngest on the team. That year, Hieu was one of two Vietnamese contestants to win a gold medal. Although he was only in grade 11 and participating in an international competition for the first time, Hieu was the one who achieved the highest score in the Vietnamese delegation with 89.764 points, ranking 7th out of 280 contestants that year.

This time, meeting Hieu again at the house on Hoang Quoc Viet street (Cau Giay, Hanoi), he was a first-year student at the University of Natural Sciences, Vietnam National University, Hanoi.

With his achievements, Hieu was one of the candidates who was admitted directly and also intended to become a new student of Hanoi Medical University in 2017.

But then, I stopped, with a simple explanation that I wanted to continue pursuing Chemistry. “I want to continue to do more research on materials and fields related to Chemistry,” the former student of the Chemistry class at the High School of Natural Sciences shared.

Still with a simple appearance typical of a "educated person", Hieu shared that after winning 2 gold medals at the International Chemistry Olympiad for 2 consecutive years, his life has not changed much.

“After the initial results, I decided to enroll in the Chemistry Talent class of the University of Natural Sciences, VNU Hanoi. In the first days of school, some teachers and classmates, although not familiar with me, still recognized me. This really made me feel very happy, but then I “awakened” myself that the international Olympic gold medal was actually just an exam and I had to continue trying. I really still had to try very hard because my classmates were all very excellent, all had won national or provincial/city awards. In class, I saw that my classmates' academic ability was on par with mine,” Hieu shared.

Because of that, Hieu still keeps his old habit of studying hard, when encountering difficult problems, he is determined to solve them to the end, and can even stay up all night to do them.

In particular, Hieu also often "gropes" foreign scientific journals or research projects to find more information and according to Hieu, this also helps him a lot in handling exercises, conducting experiments and understanding more about the mechanisms of phenomena in life.

“I like Chemistry-Physics the most. Because this part helps me understand the nature of reactions, explain phenomena, processes and developments of things in life,” Hieu said.

On his desk, Hieu always puts bottles containing the products he obtained during his practice during the preparation period for the international Olympic team. “I like to bring home the chemicals I have prepared after the experiments. When I study, I sometimes take them out to look at and feel motivated.”

Hieu shared that he won 2 international gold medals, but when he entered university, he also realized that it was not enough and could not guarantee success in university.

“Therefore, in addition to studying Chemistry well, I also need to improve and learn more about many other subjects. Because all subjects are important and help supplement knowledge so that I can develop further in the future, supplementing Chemistry. In addition, I also need to actively participate in social and extracurricular activities and practice other skills such as communication and behavior to become a more active person.”

In addition to studying at school, Hieu often spends his free time pursuing his two hobbies: practicing the guitar or playing soccer with his friends. “During the week, I usually have a soccer match with my classmates and my favorite position is attacking midfielder.

I also often watch football clips, especially artistic football. On weekends, I often watch the English Premier League and am a fan of Arsenal Football Club. Although I have only started playing the guitar since entering university, I really like it and am confident that I can play it quite well,” Hieu laughed.

The young man revealed that he currently has no girlfriend, but he is ready to accept love and express it if he has an impression of someone of the opposite sex. "The important thing is to ensure that everything is balanced, especially if it does not affect daily studies and work, then love is a good thing."

But perhaps what Hieu is most concerned about right now is the result of being admitted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - the world's number 1 technology institute located in Massachusetts, USA - in the early application round.

Around mid-August this year, Hieu will leave to enroll in this leading technology university in the US with a full scholarship worth 279,600 USD (equivalent to 6.4 billion VND) for 4 years of study here.

To achieve his long-cherished dream, Hieu has made great efforts to achieve the desired score when he was not very good at English. He achieved 1500 points in SAT1, 104 points in TOEFL; especially Hieu achieved perfect scores of 800/800 in Math, 800/800 in Physics, 800/800 in Chemistry on SAT 2. A special point is that in his essay, Hieu also mentioned his simple hobby of football and his efforts and hard work in training.

At the world's most prestigious school, Hieu plans to pursue Materials Science - a major closely related to his two favorite subjects: Chemistry and Physics.

Through that, I hope to be able to freely research and create new materials that can solve environmental or energy problems, especially useful for Vietnam.

Talking about his plans, Hieu shared that before studying abroad, he will travel to a few places in Vietnam. “I want to use my free time to relieve stress and explore more about Vietnam, because in previous summers I spent a lot of time studying and was not able to do this,” Hieu said.

Currently, this 1999-born boy is also on the list of 20 nominees for the 2017 Vietnam Outstanding Young Face award.