Physics gold boy
Nguyen The Quan (former 12A3 student of Phan Boi Chau High School for the Gifted - Nghe An) is the only contestant of the Vietnamese Team to win a Gold Medal at the International Physics Olympiad (IPhO) in 2025. The male student also won a Gold Medal at the 2025 Asia-Pacific Physics Olympiad with the highest score in the Vietnamese delegation and was honored to be awarded the Second-class Labor Medal in 2025. The Quan also won a Bronze Medal at the 2024 Asian Physics Olympiad when he was in 11th grade.
In addition to the above achievements, The Quan also excellently won the National Excellent Student Award for Physics for 2 consecutive years (school years 2023 - 2024, 2024 - 2025), was the valedictorian of the entrance exam to 10th grade specialized Physics of Phan Boi Chau High School for the Gifted (Nghe An) in 2022, and the male student also achieved SAT scores of 1.550 and IELTS scores of 7.5.
Sharing about the reason for pursuing his passion for Physics, The Quan said that he himself was a secondary school math major, deciding to switch to Physics to pursue his dream. "The more I study, the more attractive Physics becomes to me. This subject helps me understand the world around me more deeply, explain phenomena that occur in life. Physics also teaches me how to see things with logical thinking, creativity and scientific curiosity. In addition, my family also has a tradition of learning, from grandfather to father and uncle, they all study Physics well, so it partly motivates me to pursue this path" - Quan shared.
From practical experience, The Quan believes that Vietnamese students achieve high results in international Olympic exams comes from many factors. Among them, the most prominent is the methodical investment of the Education sector, especially the team training programs and the enthusiastic guidance of teachers and leading experts.
In addition, a high-quality learning environment also plays a key role in determining students' development ability. A good learning environment helps male students correctly recognize their abilities and avoid falling into the "frog sitting at the bottom of a well" situation.
According to the plan, in August, The Quan will go to study abroad at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US - one of the leading universities in the world.
Currently, I am also exploring many different directions such as AI, data science or software engineering to have a multi-dimensional view before making a final choice about my major" - Quan shared.
Recognizing the important role of the young generation in the context of international integration, The Quan believes that the achievements in the international arena are not only personal success but also create motivation for future generations to follow in their footsteps. The more young people pursue high-level science and technology, the more development potential Vietnam has. In the future, after finishing studying abroad, the male student expressed his desire to return to Vietnam to contribute his efforts to the domestic science and society.
Passion for scientific research
Excellently achieving GPA 3.99/4, Vu Luong Ngoc Anh (22 years old) completing the High Quality Foreign Economic Relations program of Foreign Trade University (FTU) surpassed nearly 1,300 students of the same course, becoming the student with the highest score in this graduation round.
Starting to participate in scientific research from the second year, Ngoc Anh's most favorite topic is the student study on applying machine learning to solve game theory problems, presented at the AAAI-26 international scientific conference ranked A* held in Singapore.
Sharing about the research journey, the female student said that initially she intended to do purely economics, but then realized that it could be combined with machine learning to handle problems more effectively. Along with a friend, Ngoc Anh actively learned about the theoretical foundation of games, machine learning algorithms, and at the same time transformed economic models into forms that can be processed by code.
This process helps me to better define the direction of combining economics with technology to solve scientific data problems. Therefore, I decided to learn more SQL query language, Python programming language and Power BI business analysis platform" - Ngoc Anh shared.
Ngoc Anh also participated in some competitions with friends at Hanoi University of Science and Technology and won the championship at the Data Science Talent Competition (Searching for Data Science Talents) in 2024.
After graduating, Ngoc Anh plans to develop in a data-driven direction in the business field, but not only stop at analyzing, but also to understand more deeply how data is actually used to make decisions in the business.
In the short term, I want to continue to accumulate practical experience, especially in a fast-paced environment where decisions need to be made based on data but still consider market and human factors. I want to better understand what's behind the numbers' and how to transform data into insights that can act.
In parallel with that, I am also exploring suitable master's programs, related to Business Analytics or Data Science to develop the platform in a more systematic way. In the long term, I want to become someone who can effectively connect data and business, that is, not only analyze well, but also be able to participate in the decision-making process, see the big picture and create practical value" - Ngoc Anh said.
