8/14/2019
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Rose Dinh’s parents were immigrants from Vietnam, working hard after settling in the Chicago suburbs and instilling in her and her two brothers the same kind of work ethic.
Dinh says she knew she could start writing her own success story, the kind her parents had in mind, by studying Computer Science at the University of Illinois. But she also knew her parents would at some point have three children in college at the same time, all in need of their support.
Dinh, who will be an Illinois Computer Science sophomore this Fall, found a solution when she was awarded an Engineering Visionary Scholarship.
“Because of the EVS scholarship that I received, attending Illinois became the obvious, affordable option,” Dinh said.
The Engineering Visionary Scholarship fund, which is managed by The Grainger College of Engineering, provides large, renewable scholarships to students across the college, including computer science students.
Through December 2019, the Grainger Foundation will match gifts to the EVS initiative and other endowed scholarship funds such as the Computer Science Visionary Scholarship fund through the Grainger Matching Challenge. It provides the opportunity for donors to double their gifts, or quadruple them if their employer offers a matching-gift program.
Dinh was introduced to computer science through programming, and grew to love it as part of the math team at her high school in South Barrington, northwest of Chicago.
“I learned how to program my calculator to solve hard math problems and this experience led to me taking my first CS class, and I found my passion,” she said.
Now she’s working on her bachelor’s degree, plans to graduate in 2022, then get to work on her master’s degree.
Her success is a way of repaying her parents for their encouragement.
“(They) came over when they were adolescents during the Vietnam War,” Dinh said. “They both had very little when they immigrated and have worked very hard for their successes.”