Student of the Week: HO SEANG HOI

PHOTOGRAPH BY PHAR LINA

HO SEANG HOI

(Posted by CAAI News Media)

Wednesday, 16 December 2009 15:01 POST STAFF

HO Seang Huoy is only a senior at university, but she is already an experienced chemist, community leader and teacher. Not only has she been a standout student in the RUPP chemistry department for the past four years, she has also found time to teach younger students, travel to America for leadership training and use that training as a volunteer in Kampot.

Earlier this year, Ho Seang Huoy won a scholarship through the US Institute of Student Leaders to study in the United States for five weeks in order to bring her expertise back to Cambodia to help develop communities in the Kingdom. “In the class we learned how to be a leader and the role of the media in democratic countries,” she said. “And I also got to see many things like Chicago, the third biggest city in America.”

When she returned to Cambodia she went to Kampot to train people in community and leadership development. “We taught people to lead themselves,” she explained.

In the future, Ho Seang Huoy hopes to work as a professor of chemistry at a prestigious university.

“I want to teach but I also want to do research, like a professor at universities in America.”

Ho Seang Huoy said she hopes her work in the chemistry lab will help improve Cambodia. “We are a developing country so we need people to do the research that will guide our development.”

For her senior thesis Ho Seang Huoy will join a RUPP research project that will focus on the impact of pesticides on the ecosystems of the Mekong River.

Next year she hopes to continue her studies at a university overseas. She has already put together her application and says there are three things she thinks will help her in the process: “The ability to speak English, intelligence and a clear purpose for why I want to study there; what I want to study, and how it will help my country upon my return.”