Beautiful female student won first prize in national math competition with dream of becoming a teacher

It has been many years since the Math team of Phan Boi Chau High School for the Gifted had a female student “enter” the team. Although she is a math major, Duong Quynh Chau looks quite feminine and graceful like other female students in the school.

Only when talking about Math, Quynh Chau reveals a different person, sharp, agile and showing a very fast way of thinking. In this alone, Chau is not inferior to any male student in the team.

The first prize winner in Math is a very pretty female student. Photo: My Ha.

Duong Quynh Chau grew up and attended primary and secondary school in Anh Son district. Because both Chau's parents were teachers, and her mother taught math, Chau loved math from a young age.

Since primary school, Chau has loved numbers, calculated very quickly and was almost always at the top of the class in Math. Chau's most outstanding achievement when she was in high school in the district was winning first prize in Math at the Provincial Excellent Student Competition in grade 9.

In the Math team, Chau is the only female student. Photo: My Ha

With this achievement, of course, many students chose Phan Boi Chau High School for the Gifted to pursue their dreams. Chau herself thought so too, but at that time, Chau's enrollment in Phan was not approved by many people around her.

Talking about this, Chau said: When I knew I was going to a specialized school, many people advised me to think carefully. Because if I go to a specialized school, I must have a national award. On the contrary, if I fail the exam, it will be difficult to get a high score on the university entrance exam. I myself have determined that if I go to Phan, I must have an award and I enrolled because I wanted to change the views of many students in the district school.

With such determination, when she went to Vinh to study in grade 10, the first thing Chau told her parents was that she was going to take the national exam. But then, the first two years of studying at a specialized school, in a specialized Math class that gathered many excellent students from the whole province, it was not easy to do. The biggest failure Chau received was in grade 11 when she was eliminated from the school's excellent student team to participate in the national excellent student competition. This also means that finding a second chance is really difficult because there are many talented people but the higher the opportunity, the rarer it becomes.

Female student majoring in Math dreams of becoming a teacher. Photo: NVCC

In grade 12, the first time Chau was called to the school team to participate in the National Excellent Student Competition, teacher Ho Sy Hung - head of the math team was also very worried.

However, the teacher had his own reasons for making his decision: For 12th graders, when choosing them for the team, the first goal is to let them "escape" the National High School Exam, which means at least winning a prize and entering the second round. Therefore, when choosing new factors, we were very concerned and in fact, this year's team only has 2 new students. As for Chau, when choosing her, I was quite confident because Chau has a good thinking foundation, has a high goal of "going to Phan to join the national team". Finally, I really want to guide her into the team because she has a very big dream of becoming a Math teacher in the future.

In addition to the above reasons, Chau had been proving her progress to her teachers for more than a year, especially after she was rejected from the national team. To do this, Chau's only secret was to study and practice the difficult exercises, which she admitted were her "weaknesses". Chau also said that Math is very attractive because it involves logic and thinking, but doing a difficult problem is not easy. There were exercises that took her many days to complete, and when she finished, it was like a burden had been lifted.

Math team's review session to prepare for round 2 of national team selection. Photo: My Ha

As a female student, Chau was able to demonstrate her strengths when doing her tests, which are carefulness and certainty. Therefore, when entering the National Excellent Student Competition, Chau did her test quite confidently. However, Chau was surprised to learn that she won first prize and was the only female student in the whole country to win first prize in Mathematics.

This result also created conditions for Chau to enter round 2 and have the opportunity to seek many other awards. Chau also began to think about university with the dream of becoming a teacher that she has cherished since she was little...

And with certainty, with the mindset of a good Math student, I believe that the path Chau has chosen will have many more successes.