Duluth Student at GPC Wins $90,000 Scholarship

Huong Vu, a Duluth resident who moved by herself to Georgia from Vietnam to further her education, has been awarded a scholarship valued at up to $90,000 to continue her education at Georgia Tech.

Vu, who recently graduated from Georgia Perimeter College with a 4.0 GPA and associate degrees in mathematics and business administration, had all but given up her dream to attend Georgia Tech and become an industrial engineer because she couldn’t afford it.

Then she was called into the college president’s office and told she has won the Jack Kent Cooke Undergraduate Transfer Scholarship. The JKC Scholarship awards up to $90,000 towards obtaining a bachelor’s degree. Vu is the ninth GPC student to win the scholarship, which helps outstanding community college students transfer to four-year colleges and universities, according to a press release issued by GPC.

“It was just so amazing and touching to me that I burst into tears,” Vu said.

As a teenager in Saigon, Vu, 15, was ranked first in all her classes but aspired to study in the United States. Because she wanted to become an industrial engineer, she set her sights on attending the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta.

At first her father objected. “He said I was too young to come to the U.S. alone, and we couldn’t afford Georgia Tech. I researched on the Internet and found that I could go to Georgia Perimeter and through the Regents Engineering Transfer Program, I could take core classes and transfer seamlessly to Georgia Tech. GPC was affordable,” she said.

When Vu turned 19, her father relented and agreed to let her come to the United States.

After arriving here, Vu found work and enrolled at GPC, where she participated in the college’s English as a Second Language and Honors programs. She was also financially assisted by five scholarships awarded through the Georgia Perimeter College Foundation.

The JKC Scholarship will cover Vu's tuition, living expenses, books, and fees for up to three years as she completes earning her bachelor’s degree.