San Gabriel Senior Wins 11 Scholarships Including Princeton

San Gabriel High senior and first generation Vietnamese-American, Kenny Lam, applied to 18 colleges and won 11 scholarships, including to Yale, Princeton and Brown University. Though Kenny prefers not to talk about himself, he agreed to a conversation to help other first-gen students learn from his journey.
Kenny says it wasn’t until he was in high school that he realized his parents “have sacrificed so much for me and my sister.” His mother and father were each part of families with 13 children and both had to stop their education early to help provide for their families during the war. After they married, his parents emigrated from South Vietnam in the late 1980’s to build a better life in Rosemead, CA. They both work long hours, as they have nearly their entire lives. One of Kenny’s goals in going to college is to be able to eventually repay his parents for all they have done for him.
Kenny says, unlike other students, his parents did not pressure him to excel but just wanted him “to like school and enjoy life.” All of his goal-directed behavior was self-generated “so I could learn what I really cared about.” He urges students not to begin thinking about college until their junior year in order to first learn what “what really engages you, what you are passionate about.” Then “when it is time to think abut college, you know what you are genuinely interested in.”