By Jessica Anstice
For international students like Phuong Linh Nguyen, Covid-19 has meant visiting family back home in Vietnam for the holidays is out of the question.
The Beaconhills student is about to commence Year 12, so she could not afford the risk of not being able to return to Australia to finish her studies had she flown back home.
Fortunately, she has found a warm and welcoming home in the Beaconhills boarding house and loves school, particularly with the chance to choose to study any subject she is passionate about, along with much smaller class sizes.
“In Vietnam, about a year ago, I was 16-year-old and for my parents at the time I was too young to be able to study abroad but I didn’t think so,” she recalled.
“My parents wanted to choose a high school that had a dormitory and so through dedicated advice, my parents decided to choose Beaconhills College.
“Beaconhills has a great study environment because it is located far away from Melbourne so it has a quite space and fresh atmosphere.”
In her home city Hai Phong, known as the Red Phoenix Flower City and famous for its delicious ‘banh da cua’ soup, a typical day involves getting up at 6am and finishing school at 5pm.
She says school life here is very different.
“What I like best here is probably the study and the biggest difference is the learning environment,” she explained.
“Here, I can choose any subject that I want to study that I am passionate about. In Vietnam, a class will have about 40 to 45 students, but here the number is halved.
“There are many new subjects here that I have never heard of in Vietnam, like food studies and systems engineering.”
In Vietnam, Phuong Linh was expected to study 13 compulsory subjects, five of which are used to determine a university course outcome.
“Here, we can choose at least four subjects according to our interests and forte,” she said.
“I can choose the subjects that I like, with orientation for the future.”
Phuong Linh also loves the sporting facilities and after-school sport Beaconhills College provides.
After completing VCE, the ambitious 17-year-old hopes to study medicine, nursing or IT at the University of Melbourne.
Beaconhills College head of boarding Kelly Cunningham said some of the college’s international students had not seen their family since the start of 2020.
She said the boarding house aimed to create a home-away from-home for students, so they felt they had a ‘family’ to talk to and who cared for them.
For now, Phuong Linh is staying with her aunt in Sunshine until school returns.
“In times of unpredictable epidemics, I think it is best to stay where I am,” she said.
“Travel is very dangerous now – especially flying for eight hours.”
