Priscilla Nguyen, Vietnam
Pathway to Diagnostic Medical Sonography
My name is Priscilla, and I am so happy and grateful to know that I am eligible for ESL Milestones Certificate!
Going to college with English as my second language is very challenging for me and my friends because we faced many challenges. We had to face situations where people had a hard time listening to us. We had to use hand figures to describe our expression. They took a longer time to guess and kept asking, ‘Is that what you mean?’ We couldn’t express ourselves in classrooms because we [were] afraid one of our friends would judge us by our broken English. We did not have native friends here because we didn’t have much the same in culture and lack of confidence in communication. People who are non-native speakers pretty sure know all situations above. However, I am so glad that we fight the challenges and we win. Now, I am earning the ESL Milestone Certificate, which is an indication of a proud path that I took during three years of taking requirement classes for DMS program.
To be able to earn these certificates, I completed 184, 185, & 186 ESL classes at Cypress College beginning spring 2015. After finishing all ESL classes, I really appreciate the knowledge which I learned from ESL professors who are very caring and patient with us. They guide us to our desired path. My vocabulary got bigger. I can read faster and getting ready for heavy materials in other classes. Moreover, the most important thing is I gained confidence to discuss any subject with my classmate in the group project as well as have small talk with native speakers.
Now I can use these certificates for my resumes for the job interview purposes. I believe it is a fancy way to show off to your employer with a lot of colorful certificates along with your license rather than only a license and a tiny writings through the college transcript. Sometimes, you transfer and have many transcripts so they don’t really look at them, and they don’t know which class you already took.
Finally, I want to say thank you to Professor Wada who dedicates a lot so I and many others and have the ESL Certificates to put in the resume. I hope many ESL students will apply for these certificates, which is very beneficial for education path and careers.