After the High School Graduation Exam (HSGE) in previous years, applicants could, based on the grades they obtained, change their first choice of university registered initially. They would adjust their first choice of university to be more appropriate to themselves.
This year, the situation is different. Covid-19 appeared and reappeared in Vietnam, causing disruptions to careers, jobs, and people’s incomes, and it is certainly modifying many applicants’ criteria for choosing a university.
DTU students studying together at the library
With the grades they obtained in the exams just past, what they are pondering right now is not which university to choose, but which major. What students about to enter university worry about is:
- Which major should they study for smooth studies, whether the pandemic makes a resurgence or not?
- Which major should they choose for a stable career later on regardless of upheaval from natural disasters, disease, etc.?
- Which majors are always necessary, even if society goes through more turmoil in the future?
Major should be first concern
Covid-19 has almost completely done away with the concept of studying at a famous university. Students nowadays only need a nice transcript and some kind of English language certificate for a chance to be admitted to one of those famous universities, no need to wait for HSGE scores.
DTU students with their foreign lecturer
Even the concepts of “famous major” or “hot major” have been swept away by Covid-19. Only half a year ago, aviation was a super-hot field, especially among girls. But now, surely not many people are thinking of studies in this field. Many airline companies have been forced to suspend activities and are facing financial difficulties and even bankruptcy. Evidently, few students will still be eager to start studies in the field.
The pandemic is causing social upheaval and causing delays in career advancement, but it should not obstruct your studies. You should continue towards the completion of your studies. Universities are now doing their utmost to help you live through your student life to the end, with or without pandemic.
“The matter is which major to study”
First of all, one should mention that majors requiring practice or direct interaction during teaching will be problematic. How can studies include experiments and observational practice if students must now and then stay home while the pandemic is running its course? Fields like oil & gas, shipbuilding, chemistry, food, biology, and thermodynamics are plagued with difficulties nowadays. For the long term, however, society will continue demanding people who studied these majors, and they will attract students once more.
Next, which major do you choose to avoid jobs and careers being suspended every time some upheaval like a pandemic strikes? A field that is vital for social development and especially in rapidly developing countries like Vietnam, Civil Engineering, has recently also been paralyzed in many localities throughout the country due to the pandemic. A great many contractors are beggared after having invested all their capital in construction work; workers are unemployed; equipment and machinery are in storage; work is unfinished, all due to social distancing.
Fields close to vital human necessities, like cooking and food preparation, restaurants, and selling food, are also interrupted. A great many restaurants had to close and many of them shifted to selling their products online and to home delivery.
Finally, we should have a look at which majors are always required in society, regardless of risk or tumult. These will naturally be the majors related to the most basic human necessities: eating and wearing clothes, and after these more basic needs comes studying. Even though food and drink services suffer interruption due to the pandemic, some way or other they must continue to keep people alive. Next, young and even old, all need to acquire knowledge, study, and develop, no matter how complicated the situation surrounding the pandemic. Many countries have recently started paying attention to methods to reduce stress and depression among the many students who cannot attend school due to the pandemic. Solutions do not boil down to letting crowds of students go back to school, but what is important is how the format of teaching and training must change to be appropriate to the new situation. And finally, if the situation surrounding the pandemic continues growing in complexity, people’s health needs and the demand for social security and order will increase. More medical doctors, pharmacists, nurses, and police officers will be needed for the “frontlines”. The paradox is that these majors require a lot of practice and hands-on experience, such that offering training in them is not easy in current conditions for many educational institutions.
Many students hand in applications at the Job Fair DTU every year
Fields close to vital human necessities, like cooking and food preparation, restaurants, and selling food, are also interrupted. A great many restaurants had to close and many of them shifted to selling their products online and to home delivery.
Finally, we should have a look at which majors are always required in society, regardless of risk or tumult. These will naturally be the majors related to the most basic human necessities: eating and wearing clothes, and after these more basic needs comes studying. Even though food and drink services suffer interruption due to the pandemic, some way or other they must continue to keep people alive. Next, young and even old, all need to acquire knowledge, study, and develop, no matter how complicated the situation surrounding the pandemic. Many countries have recently started paying attention to methods to reduce stress and depression among the many students who cannot attend school due to the pandemic. Solutions do not boil down to letting crowds of students go back to school, but what is important is how the format of teaching and training must change to be appropriate to the new situation. And finally, if the situation surrounding the pandemic continues growing in complexity, people’s health needs and the demand for social security and order will increase. More medical doctors, pharmacists, nurses, and police officers will be needed for the “frontlines”. The paradox is that these majors require a lot of practice and hands-on experience, such that offering training in them is not easy in current conditions for many educational institutions.
From the above practical considerations, we list the fields to choose during this pandemic, or for any environment prone to more upheaval due to the fallout of the pandemic, below. Some of the listed fields are not directly related to the most basic human necessities mentioned previously, but they directly or indirectly serve these needs in current social conditions:
- Information Technology
- Electrical Engineering
- Management and Law
- Medicine, Pharmacy, Nursing
- Hospitality and Entertainment
Students practice with modern equipment
Almost all of the fields listed are ones that DTU invested in and enjoys some of society’s trust for:
Information Technology: DTU is strong in information technology with two of its IT majors having received ABET accreditation, the American accreditation standard in engineering and technology enjoying most prestige in the world, in 2019. (In Vietnam, before DTU, the Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology was the only other university to have received this accreditation, namely in 2014.) The university is furthermore well-versed in online training based on ten years of offering eUniversity programs online in many different majors. The Ministry of Education & Training acknowledged it as one of the four schools in Vietnam fully equipped for online teaching with LMS, LCMS, and electronic study materials. This is why DTU can always be confident that its IT majors will be among the best in Central Vietnam and even in the entire country.
Electrical Engineering: DTU’s major in Electrical Engineering also received ABET accreditation, the worldwide “gold standard” for university education accreditation in engineering and technology, and only several Vietnamese universities (the Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology, the International University of the National University Ho Chi Minh City, Cao Thang Technical College, and DTU) obtained it. Furthermore, DTU’s training programs and textbooks in Electrical Engineering were “imported” from the American Purdue University, one of the ten leading universities in electrical engineering and telecommunications in the US (according to U.S. News 2020). It should also be said that, although the demand for human resources in electrical engineering in Vietnam is not as high as in IT, remuneration and career stability in the field are often higher, regardless of upheaval.
Study and entertainment area for students
Management and Law: DTU is particularly proud to be the only Vietnamese university whose Management Information Systems major obtained ABET accreditation (the most prestigious in the US) and is taught completely in English. Furthermore, almost all of the university’s majors in economics and management were transferred from Pennsylvania State University, one of the fifty universities with best Schools of Management in the US, where its lecturers were also trained. In law, the university has the two majors of Law (to train lawyers) and Economic Law. Beyond this, students interested in social security or state government can look into institutions like the People’s Police Academy or the National Academy of Public Administration.
Nursing, Pharmacy, Medicine: DTU drew up a plan to build a general hospital in the coming one or two years. The university is currently working with Pittsburgh University, one of the fifteen best universities in medicine, pharmacy, and nursing training in the US, to create a MedSIM medical simulation center with an investment of over four million US dollars. Students in practice classes of less than twenty people can still have practice hours and internships like usual, despite the pandemic. The university is also proud that its lecturers in medicine, pharmacy, and nursing are among the most numerous in Danang and that the number of its health sciences students is also among the highest in Danang.
Practice hour of students in the health sciences
Hospitality and Entertainment: Based on its traditional strength in IT and on a close partnership with Pennsylvania State University (one of the five leading universities in hospitality of the world) through advanced programs, DTU is designing and preparing subjects in entertainment technology for students of the university’s Institute of Hospitality Training & Research. The university believes that the recent changes to the program will make its hospitality students more dynamic and flexible. The university is ever proud to be the institution with largest-scale hospitality training in Central Vietnam with over 5,000 students, and the director presiding over its hospitality training is the South Korean Prof. Dr Lim Sang-taek, former Chairman of the Asia Pacific Tourism Association (APTA). Finally, for students choosing hospitality now, it may very well be that the current pandemic will be over four years from now, and if another pandemic or some other upheaval were to occur then, they will have received the best preparation to work with new hospitality and entertainment formats. One should remember that hospitality is ever one of Vietnam’s and especially of Danang’s strengths.
To conclude, the information above is to help you have additional criteria and conditions to consider your choice or to change your first choice of major or university. The information given can be condensed into the following suggestions:
(1) Choose a field worth pursuing following the above analysis.
(2) Check whether the schools offering these fields have full online training capacity. (If not, no matter how famous the school, it will have to close maybe for long intervals during the pandemic and there is no saying when you will graduate.)
(3) Finally, investigate the prestige, education quality, accreditation, and rankings of the university where you are planning to select your “major worth pursuing” as said before.
For more information, please contact:
The DTU Center for Admissions at 254 Nguyen Van Linh, Danang.
Tel: (0236) 3653.561-3650.403 - Fax: (0236) 3650.443
Hotline: 1900.2252 - 0905.294.390 - 0905.294.391
Email: tuyensinh@duytan.edu.vn;
Facebook: tuyensinhdtu; Zalo: 0905.294.390 - 0905.294.391
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DTU
- Ranked among Asia's top 500 universities by QS in 2020
- The second Vietnamese university to obtain American ABET accreditation
- Ranked 1,659th in the top 2,000 universities worldwide and third of four in Vietnam by CWUR
- Ranked 1,147th in the top 2,500 universities worldwide and third of eight in Vietnam by URAP
- Ranked second of ten leading universities of Vietnam in international publications by the Nature Index in 2019
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(Media Center)
