The person I interviewed is Tom Nguyen. He is a dual enrollment student at Georgia State Perimeter College. He is a junior in high school and attends Dekalb Early College Academy. He has lived in Stone Mountain, Georgia all his life. He refers to himself as a gamer who prefers first-person shooting games. He is also considered to be well-traveled. He has been outside the country multiple times and has been to Japan and Vietnam, his home country.

Three words that Tom chose to describe his academic self are “out of the box, creative, and different”. His biggest influencers for his academic self are his family, more specifically his two older siblings and his parents. His brother, was the one to pave his path of going to the same high school, doing dual enrollment, and then later going to Georgia Tech. Although he has realized that he doesn’t want to follow in his footsteps completely but wants a head start in college. As of right now Tom does not have a major but has an idea of what he wants to major in computer science.

This being his second semester at GSU, he is really enjoying his time here. He appreciates the certain freedom that comes with college and professors not hovering over you the way high school teachers do. Things that frustrate him about college is the way professors use multiple sites when it comes to assignments, it becomes complicated to check everything so that you won’t be late or miss assignments entirely. In the video, “Developing a Mindset for Successful Learning” by Dr. Chew, he speaks about the 10 study strategy principles. One of them is, “successful learning requires planning ahead”. This can be related to the multiple sites, being that communication with your professor is very important to the planning process.

Not really knowing what aspect he wants to focus on within that major, he is confident that he wants to work with technology because it is something he is passionate about.

Chew, S. (n.d.). How to study. How to Get the Most Out of Studying. Retrieved from https://www.samford.edu/departments/academic-success-center/how-to-study