current magazine 1st issue

issue 01, March 2012

| if you wish to contribute, please contact us at [email protected] | website: http://www.current.vn/ |

Character of the month

Vo Duy Khanginterview with a successful RMIT alumni

4 suggestions to improve the RMIT Hanoi campus opinion of an RMIT student

Introducing the RMIT Event Club 2011 White Christmas Party

And many, many more topicsread on!

currentmagazinea m o n t h l y m a g a z i n e b y R M I T s t u d e n t s

How to make a million dollarsYou can start right now!

Student councilWhat you need to know.

Mrs Dinh Thao PhuongI Sports and Recreation Officer

Welcome new students! Orientation Day - Spring 2012

1 | currentmagazine issue01

issue 01

CONTENTS2. Orientation daySpring 2012 - Hanoi campus.

4. Character of the monthInterview with Mrs Phuong - Sport & Recreation.

6. A view on student councilQuan shares his view on the upcoming student council.

8. The list4 suggestions to improve the RMIT Hanoi campus.

10. Successful AlumniVo Duy Khang - young author & entrepreneur.

11. Elevator pitchCalling all RMIT entrepreneurs!

12. ForumHow to get a million dollars?

14. Movie reviewA Walk To Remember (2002)

15. Club pubRMIT Event Club - 2011 White Christmas Party.

16. Miss TrendyFashion column featuring Chi Pu!

currentmediastaffs

EDITORIAL TEAMNguyen Hai DuyPhan Anh QuanTran Anh Vu

SALES, PR & FINANCETo Phuong LinhNguyen Tran Mai AnhBui Xuan Duong

PHOTOGRAPHERSTran Ngoc CuongDinh Hong Anh

CONTRIBUTORLe Ngoc Tram

Current Magazine is a free, student-run publication for the RMIT Hanoi community.

Copyright © 2012 currentmedia

from the editorNguyen Hai Duy - editor in chief

On your hand right now is the very first issue of Current Magazine. 10 people, 3 months and a whole lot of hard work went into these 16 pages.I would like to thank Mrs Phuong Dinh from Sport & Recreation and Mrs Van Doan from Communica-tion for their tremendous help in establishing the magazine. I also would like to thank Mr Graeme Domm and Mr Steve Paris for their support and helpful feedbacks.And finally, I would like to thank Quan, Vu, Xiu, Mai Anh, Duong & our amazing team. Without you guys none of this would have been possible!

currentmagazine

Please note that the views ex-pressed in these pages are the personal views of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the views of RMIT management.

currentmagazine issue01 | 2

MISS TRENDY

MODELS: CHI PU, HOAI NAM. PHOTOGRAPHER: HONG ANH.

A WARM WELCOME TO THE NEW STUDENTS OF RMIT HANOI CAMPUS!

PHOTOS BY TRAN NGOC CUONG


C U R R E N T MAG A Z I N E H A D A B R I E F TA L K W I T H M R S P H U O N G. T H I S IS HER LAST SEMESTER DIREC TLY MANAGING THE STUDENT CLUBS OF RMIT HANOI CAMPUS BEFORE THE INTRODUC TION OF STUDENT CO U N C I L .

way around.In the beginning I was skeptical

about my job at RMIT. But the more time I spend working, the more I enjoy it. Now I think I fallen in love with my job.

When exactly did you start work-ing at RMIT? How was it in the begin-ning?

I started working since August 2009, so it has been almost three years.

To be honest, I was a little nervous at first. Back in my university we did not have many student clubs. I was shocked to find that RMIT Hanoi had 11 student clubs (at that time).

And there were other factors. Like that fact that I just graduated and fresh out of school, lacking any kind of experience. Most of the students under my management at that time where only slight younger than me, and some were even older.

Actually working with the students turned out to be a pleasant sur-prise. They were young, enthusiastic, friendly and modest. I took a liking to the students almost immediately.

Initally it was rough. Of the first 11 clubs only about 7 or 8 were actually active. The rest were disorganized and lacking directions. There were ups and downs but now I’m proud to say that the 23 student clubs of RMIT Hanoi are generally doing quite well. The original 11 clubs are still active to this day.

What is the most memorable expe-rience for you while working in RMIT?

The best memories for me has got to be the graduation ceremonies.

CHARACTER

OF THE

MONTH

M R S D I N H T H AO P H U O N GSPORT & RECREATION OFFICER, RMIT HANOI

Some of the students might not know who you are, so can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Hello! My name is Phuong, I’m in charge of sport & recre-ation in RMIT Hanoi. My main duties including managing the student clubs, student activities. events and the recreation room.

A little history of how I got here: I graduated from the Uni-versity of International relation. This is officially my first job after graduation, though I used to be an intern at Pricewater-houseCoopers, working as a tax consultant.

At that time I have applied for many jobs but somehow ended up working at RMIT. I guess it was part fate and part luck. I believe that the job chooses the person, not the other


P H U O N G I N H E R 5 T H F LO O R O F F I C EPHOTOGRAPHS BY CUONG.

“STUDY IS IMPORTANT BUT

DON”T JUST STUDY ALL THE

TIME. ENGAGE IN ACTIVITIES,

JOIN CLUBS, WE HAVE MANY

FINE CHOICES HERE AT RMIT

HANOI”.

PHUONG

What amazes me is the volunteer spirit of RMIT students. I studied in a Vietnamese university, most of the time it was very hard to find volun-teer, usually the school had to ap-point people. With RMIT is a com-pletely different story. Just minutes after the email asking for volunteers were sent out, the responses were overwhelming.

In the 2010 graduation at Van Mieu, we have about 120 volunteers. And every single one of them dressed the part, the girls with their tradition ao dai, and the boys with suits. To the students, it seems more like a festival than volunteer work.

We had this red carpet and the students stood in line along the side, everyone looking gorgeous. I actually felt like a celebrity walking along that carpet.

Another great thing about gradua-tion day is that I get to meet the club leaders again before they graduate. This often brings back a lot of memo-ries and emotions, as I have worked with many of them since they were new students.

The best thing is I get to experience this every year.

What is the current state of student clubs / activities in the Hanoi cam-pus? Is it better or worse than before?

There have always been clubs that are very active and clubs that are... not so much. This is something I’m trying to improve. I won’t say whether

it is better or worse than before, be-cause it’s very subjective.

I’m going to say that whatever the student do, whether big or small and whether successful or not are all products of their passion and deter-mination, and they should be proud of that. Of course that doesn’t mean there’s no room for improvement.

In general I feel that the clubs to-day are more serious than they were in 2009, which is not exactly a bad thing. However the students should not forget how to have fun. Gaining experience is great, but you should be enjoying what you are doing, too.

My adivce for the student clubs is to not have too many activities per semester. Focus on quality rather than quantity. Of course if they can man-age more activities then it’s complete-ly okay, but they always have to prior-itize their studies first. So whatever it is you are planning to do, plan ahead of the semester.

Starting next semester, Student Council (SC) will take over the man-agement of student clubs. What will you be doing after SC is established?

The SC will bring significant chang-es I’m sure. Potentially, it will bring more benefit to the clubs and the students in general. Most imporatnly, now the students will finally have the opportunity to voice their concern and defend their rights.

SC will take over the management of all non-sport clubs from me once it

is established. So mostly likely I will still be here working with the sport teams.

I will keep supporting the student activities aswell. Before, my priority has always been the student clubs. Now with SC taking over, I can finally focus on sport and recreation events like social activities, blood donations and charities. I have many ideas and now I will have the time to realize them.

So don’t worry I won’t be going anywhere anytime soon.

Do you have any advices for the students in general?

Study is important but don’t just study all time. Engage in activities, join clubs, we have many fine choices here at RMIT Hanoi. You can have fun first of all, maybe you can find your passion and even make friends who share that passion with you.

Extra curricular activities will also give you knowledge and skills that great not only for applying for a job later on, but also make your life more fulfilling. Crucial skills like communi-cation, negotiation and time manage-ment.

You can definitely tell the differ-ence between a graduate who were active in student clubs and one who did nothing but go to class.

Thank you!

A VIEW ON STUDENT COUNCILCURRENT MAGAZINE’S EDITOR PHAN ANH QUAN SHARES HIS THOUGHTS ON THE UPCOMING 2012 S T U D E N T CO U N C I L .

I’m just as surprised as some of you to see a 70K “Student Council” levy added to my tuition fee.

What the heck is this all about, on top of 50K club membership - is it really worth paying? Well, the answer to the question about Student Council value-for-money may be that what you get out of it may come down to what you are prepared to put into it. Read on and I’ll explain…

According to the 20-page Constitution, Student Council represents you and advances your welfare, co-ordinates the student clubs, officially helps you communicate with RMIT admins and many more. But those are all the bor-ing stuffs. And this is why I think why you should really care about the upcoming Student Council Election.

Let’s say for Hanoi alone, there are about 1000 stu-dents. So 70K levy from each student would translate into 70 million VND per semester for Student Council alone. Needless to say, that’s a lot of money. So you’d better make sure you vote to have the best Student Council possible or next year you run for Student Council yourself if you think you’re capable.

Before, you cannot just walk to the RMIT Vietnam president for a cup of tea. But now, you can, by having your faithful servants Student Council to talk with RMIT admins about things that matter. For example, I’m really annoyed that I have to pay for parking my motorcycle at my own school. It more or less discourages me from coming to RMIT for library, workshops, study sessions, school activities and even classes. Now it’s really nice to have Student Council care about benefits of us students and help letting our voice be known to RMIT admin staff.

I think many clubs consider the forming of Student Council a risk to their wellbeing. It’s partially true. How-ever all risks come with rewards. For one, at the moment all clubs receive the same maximum funding per term, about 200$, no matter how active they are. Now when the Student Council forms, there will be a chance that some inactive clubs might get even less or no funding depending on their goals and activities. Yes Current Me-dia, I’m talking about you, you’ll need to improve buddy.

However, if there are some very active clubs with many good activities with suitable goals, they will defi-nitely benefit a lot more. Heck, instead of 3 small activi-ties worth 200$ in 3 terms, some clubs might choose to have only 1 huge annual event using all 600$ and many other flexibilities. So having the Student Council might prove to be a chance for student clubs to grow even more, to compete and improve together.

So clubs, are you up to the challenge?But who exactly are the Student Council going to be

anyway? SC is going to have 1 president for both SG and HN campuses, 3 executives including VP, Secretary and Chief of Finance for each campus and 5 officers and 5 General Representatives also for each campus.

I’m sorry, Hanh, but the first SC president will most likely not be a Hanoian. Why? Because there are about total 4000 students in SG while about 1000 in HN. But do not fear, in the long run, Hanoi campus will grow and let it foretold the coming of a being who would restore bal-ance to the Force. Ooh, a Hanoian can dream. For now, Duong Hong Hanh, I respect your determination. I’m root-ing for you! Call me!!!

Vice President is a really weird position. When is the last time you have heard from Joe Biden? Who is he anyway? VPs usually don’t do much. I myself even know one that is incompetent and lazy. Yes, again I’m talking about you, Media. However in the likely case that the SC president is in Saigon and sometimes unable to attend meetings in Hanoi, Hanoi’s VP will replace him and act as chair. So Hanoi’s VP will be de facto leader of SC in Hanoi.

T H E S T U D E N T CO U N C I L LO G ODESIGNED BY TRUONG TRI LOI


CLUB PUB Presenting: The RMIT Event Club. warning: boring PR texts to follow

Event Club, established in 2008, is now one of most successful and longstanding clubs at RMIT. The Event Club’s mission is to bring joy and excitement to RMIT Vietnam Hanoi, foster RMIT student networks and in-crease social awareness and contribute to RMIT Vietnam by organizing various events and activities. Due to the success of their past events they have raised significant amount of money and donated valuable items for less fortunate children for charity purposes. Members will have opportunities to gain real experience in all areas of event management, add value to their CV and contribute to society while having a lot of fun making new friends.

“RMIT Red & White Christmas Party” was success-fully organised in the Ball Room of Handi Resco tower in 23 December 2011 by Event Club. With the thorough preparation since the begining of semester C 2011 and the hope to bring the RMIT students body in Hanoi and special guests a warm, relaxed but also exciting atmost-phere, the night had gathered the strength and passion of the six most influential clubs that included: Event Club, Music Club, Photo Club, Business Club, Marketing Club and Scout & Guide. As the result, the whole room was brightened with the tone of red and white not only by the decoration but also the gowns and suits that were wore by the joyous attendants. The stage was without a single second of being emptied with the play being the backbone of the night and the songs, the fashion show, the karaoke contest, and the Salsa dance in support. As soon as ones stepped into the room, their feelings of loneliness were nowhere to be found.

Chief of Finance, in my understanding, will have similar relationship with VP (in Saigon’s case, the Presi-dent) as a company’s CFO does with its CEO. One will do the right things and the other will do the things right. And also like other CFOs, Chief of Finance will have to be someone you trust with your money (which is 70 mil per term). Choose your candidate wisely. And also potential future CFOs, next year will be your chance.

Secretary will be the dream job for anybody who’s interested in organizing meetings, keeping the minutes and preparing the agenda. Boring stuffs, I know. But, to secretaries out there, I love you all. Every thing’s made possible by your constant support behind the scenes. However, to my surprise, RMIT Student Council’s Secre-tary also holds the position of the treasurer. I think it might be a bit too much for one person to do so many things.

The 5 General Representatives will also take part in Student Council’s decision making process but their exact duties are still unclear. But working with RMIT admins and representing a student body of 1000 will definitely be a very good challenge for future leaders.

Unfortunately I do not know the specific roles of the Officers since it is not clearly stated in the Constitution. But I believe working in those specific fields will provide invaluable experience and help expanding your network for the future.

So now you wish you registered to run for SC huh? Well even if you didn’t, your vote will be very important in the upcoming election. Thanks for reading.

AQ

T H E S T U D E N T CO U N C I L LO G ODESIGNED BY TRUONG TRI LOI

2011 W H I T E C H R I S T M A S PA R T YMORE PICTURES ON PAGE 15!


F I R S T R U L E O F L I B R A R I E S :YOU DON’T TALK IN LIBRARIES!

TO B E FA I R , M AY B E T H E Y A R E J U S T S C A R E D O F M Y PA R K I N G . . .PICTURE BASED ON A TRUE STORY

While the first two semesters at RMIT have been an overall enjoyable ex-perience, I feel there are things that could certainly be improved.

The parking lotI drive a car to school. It’s quite odd that despite the high tuition fee, I still have to pay parking fee. Not only that, as soon as I say that I’m a student, the security guards charges me double the normal parking fee, saying that the parking spot are only reserved for office workers and their clients. Even worse, if I were to leave school for lunch and come back, they would charge me for parking again. It’s funny, at my company’s

office I get parking for free and they pay to me go there. With RMIT it is the exact opposite: I pay money to go to school, and I get charged for parking.Now I realize this is not entirely RMIT’s fault. The school only rents the building, and the security guards are not RMIT employees. Most of the students don’t drive cars to school but everyone has to pay parking fee, regardless of their vehicle choice, which could potentially add up to a lot, considering how many times we to go to school every week.

My suggestion: Maybe the school could negotiate with the building management to offer parking for free. After all the students (and by extension, the students’ families) are RMIT’s clients, they pay a lot of money because they believe in the quality of education provided by RMIT. I think it is only fair to offer them parking spots. Or maybe the school could provide the option to include the parking fee for the whole semester in the tuition bill. I think it would be a great idea since some students might need parking and some might not. More-over, this could completely stops parking fee exploitations by the security guards.

The libraryThere is a reason why I avoid study-ing in the RMIT library whenever I can. The students would gather in groups talking loudly and play-

ing cards / video games. Come on people, let’s be civilized here. If you don’t have work to do then go hangout somewhere else, don’t get into the way of us who are actually trying to study. If you have to be in the library, at least try to keep the volume down, you are distracting other people. Also, people bring foods and drinks into the library, despite warning signs that says no food and drinks which I’m sure no one even notices. I’m cool with people having lunch in the library, but next time I see some-one doesn’t clean up their leftovers before leaving, I’m going to slap that person so hard.There is a reason why the library is in this state. The students lack a place to hangout. Be it waiting for the next class, having lunch or just having nothing to do, the library just happens to be the most convenient place in the building to hangout. And that is totally okay, as long as what-ever you do there doesn’t bother other people. We need to remember that the library is a place for study, not a place to chill out and gossip with your friends.

My suggestion: The rules for librar-ies are simple: no talking loudly, no food / drinks, no making or receiving phone calls, no tampering with the computers. I’m just repeating what the RMIT warning signs said. The library staffs should be stricter in enforcing these rules. It is perfectly reasonable to expect people to keep

THE LIST


T H E CO N T E N T O F T H I S CO LU M N S O L E LY E X P R E S S T H E I N D I V I D UA L O P I N I O N O F T H E AU T H O R . F E E L F R E E TO D I S AG R E E .

FOUR SUGGESTIONS TO IMPROVE RMIT

HANOI CAMPUS

the library quiet and clean. If people do not follow these simple rules, the staffs should have the right to kick them out.But rule enforcement can only go so far. Students, you have to look at yourself and try to behave in a civilized manner. Next time you see someone talking loudly or eating in libraries, kindly remind them that this is a place for study and they are being rude.

The lack of public space for studentsRMIT students are young, active peo-ple and we need places to socialize, share ideas and simply just relax. However, RMIT Hanoi essentially lies in an office building, which doesn’t exactly provide the ideal space for a university campus. There is a single café inside the building which serves overpriced food and drinks, often filled with smokers. There is also game room but exactly how many students go there to sit down and relax? It seems to me that the room could benefit from a better design. The location on the 5th floor also doesn’t help.It is apparent from the club day that the campus lack sufficient space for any kind of large scale student activities. Most universities in Hanoi have plenty of public space, even middle schools and high schools have school yards for activities. With RMIT outdoor activities is out of the question, and we cannot use the space indoor. It’s not that the build-

ing is lacking space, but whether the students can use it. Utilizing the in-door space in anyway requires going through the building’s management, and if they don’t approve then the school cannot use it.

My suggestion: Redesign the game room on the 5th is an option. Right now the room is largely empty except for the foosball, ping pong tables and (for some reasons) lots and lots of plastic chair stacked in a corner. Simply a couple of couches and tables and it will be a much bet-ter place for students to relax and socialize. The empty walls could be covered with photos and artworks from the student clubs. Since the room is quite large, it is entirely possible to establish a little student employed café on this floor.

Course registration & counselingI waited three hours for course reg-istration. Such a simple process was executed in least efficient manner possible: in a tiny room, with a long line of students who filled out paper forms, then a staff would take that form and enroll the student manually on the computer. This entire process could have been done online. This would save the time of both stu-dents and staffs.To make matter worse, there was a change in course names as well as the several new courses at the time. Neither the students nor the staffs

have much prior information about these changes, which created a lot of confusion. Each student, on his or her turn would ask the enrollment staff the same questions about the changed courses. Counseling should be done before the enrollment pro-cess, not during it.Which bring me to my next point: we do not know how many academic advisors are there on the campus or how to contact them, or when are they available for counseling. I was under the impression that there is only one advisor while in fact there is more than one.

My suggestion: It is great news that the school has taken notice of the problems with manual course regis-tration and is already taking steps to implement an online registration system. I guess we could make counseling a mandatory step before the enroll-ment process; this would keep the students well informed before choos-ing which course to study.

The upcoming student council has as one of its objectives the effective communication between students and the university administration. Hopefully, the council can take a look at these issues in detail and come up with solutions!

Hai Duy


L E F T: V O D U Y K H A N GRIGHT: THE COVER OF HIS BOOK: PRO IOS APP PERFORMANCE OPTIMIZATION


What to do after graduation is certainly the most concerning ques-tion to all students. While most RMIT students choose further studying abroad, others decide to get a job and step into the real world. Some even start their own business. But very few people can start up their own business and keep up with aca-demic life simultaneously. Vo Duy Khang has managed to do it.

Back in high school, Khang has found his passion in IT and started writing software. It was only in RMIT that he was able to devote his time following his passion. According to Khang, the time studying in RMIT has helped him much by providing a “really good base, knowledge and skill” which is very important in the field of high tech. Also, RMIT has succeeded in establishing an open environment in which professors and students can freely exchange their ideas and discuss with each other. “In the dynamic and challenging field of IT, developer must always look at the future and ready to break through old theories and knowledge” - responded Khang. While at RMIT he also worked part-time, then full-time for practical experiences.

Right after graduation from RMIT, Khang has got into Carnegie Mellon University for Master of Information Technology with a full scholarship. He had been able to use his financial resource to establish a small com-

pany with 4 other RMIT alumnus. According to Khang, since they have not been able to get investment yet, the re-investment of their profit into R&D is utterly vital.

“Australia is a strong market and from here it’s easy to reach for the US”. However, Khang claimed that the difference between Vietnam and Australia is also a challenge. “The most important thing is having friends, and then extend networking in Australia”. As a result, the finance of Khang’s company has been stable and come some very first achieve-ments: Win the first place in Mobile Dev Camp, organized by Orange corp, twice.

“The iPhone application market is very promising with small sup-ply and sharp increasing demand” – responds Khang when asked why he chooses iOS Instead of Android. When he started up his business, the iPhone 3 was just released and soon followed by the Apple fever. By writing and making friend via blog, Khang soon realized the potential and the reality of app developers: only hundreds of app developers globally and dozens in Vietnam (at the time). He then focused on this segment being well known for smooth and efficient apps. After a year of writing blog frequently, US publisher Apress was impressed by his insights in the area and asked Khang to write a guide book for iP-phone developers. His book, Pro iOS Apps Performance Optimization, has been published in the US since the last November.

Khang shares his two favoritve quotes: “Your time is limited. Don’t waste it by living someone else’s life” – Steve Jobs and: “I haven’t failed. I just found 10,000 ways that won’t work” – Thomas Edison. “Only by doing what you are truly passion-ate about can you have a long last motivation for your life” – said Khang – “RMIT students should always live true to their passion and overcome failures”.

Tran Vu

“ONLY BY DOING YOU ARE TRULY

PASSIONATE ABOUT CAN YOU

HAVE A LONG LAST MOTIVATION

FOR YOUR LIFE.”

KHANG

C U R R E N T M AG A Z I N E W R I T E R A N H V U H A D A C H AT W I T H V O D U Y K H A N G - A R M I T A LU M N I W H O S TA R T E D H I S O W N B U S I -NESS IN MOBILE SOFT WARE DE-V E LO P M E N T, A S W E L L A S P U B -L I S H E D A B O O K I N T H E U S .

SUC

CE

SSFU

L A

LUM

NI

STO

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Elevatorpitch

EVER HEARD OF THE ELEVATOR PITCH? IT’S VERY SIMPLE. YOU SENT US YOUR BUSINESS IDEA IN UNDER 300 WORDS. WE’LL GIVE YOU PROFESSIONAL OPINIONS!STILL UNSURE? TAKE A LOOK AT THE EXAMPLE BELOW! (THIS PARTICULAR PITCH IS COMPLETELY FICTIONAL BY THE WAY, BUT YOU GET THE IDEA)GOT IT? GOOD. EMAIL US AT [email protected] ARE YOU WAITING FOR, RMIT FUTURE ENTREPRENEURS?

The PITCH: GlamBazaar “Girls love to shop. They often end up with more clothes and fashion ac-

cessories than they could ever wear. GlamBazaar is an online marketplace where users can buy, sell and trade their unused clothings and accessories. All you need to do is sign up for an account, then you can start posting your goods on an online market stall, as well as view other people’s stalls. Users can review rating market stalls aswell as post their favorite fashion pieces on Facebook. There is no fee for joining GlamBazaar, however, we charge a small amount for priority place like the front page. We expect to earn most of our revenue from advertising.”

FOUNDER: Nguyen Ngoc Kieu LyLOCATION: HanoiEMPLOYEES: NoneLAUNCHED (BETA): September 2012SEED FUNDING: VND 415,000,000 from family & self fundings2012 REVENUE: None2013 PROJECTED REVENUE: VND 7,480,800,000SUBSCRIBERS: 1,000PRICE FOR SUBSCRIBERS: Free. Users can buy premium account

with more benefits for VND 100,000 per monthPRICE FOR ADVERTISING: VND 5-20 millions per month, depends

on the positionFUNDING SOUGHT: VND 20 billions

THE VERDICT:

Too few subscribersLy has two challenges: getting consumers to subscribe and getting brands to advertise on her web-site. The harder part will be getting the brands on board. With so few subscribers right now, it’s a much harder sell. For now, Ly should raise a smaller seed round and prove that she can acquire users and give them good trading values. Once she can demonstrate that the model is working, she can go out and raise $1 million.

Thanh Viet - NSY Ventures

Go beyond old clothes tradingThere’s nothing wrong with building a small company that operate an online clothes trading market, but that’s a small market, and venture capital firms are looking for a much larger outcome. To be more scalable, GlamBazaar needs to go way beyond used clothings. One way would be to create a broader social e-commerce site that lets fashion brands share information about their products and lets users try items—both digitally and through samples—and place orders. As it is, this business might be better suited for a small angel in-vestment or a smaller venture fund.

Ngoc Uyen - Global Trust

THE IDEA OF AN ELEVATOR PITCH IS THAT IT CAN BE DELIVERED IN THE TIME SPAN OF AN ELEVATOR RIDE: APPROXIMATELY 30 SECONDS TO 2

YO U H AV E E XAC T LY 60 S E CO N D S TO CO N V I N C E T H I S I N V E S TO RDONT’T SCREW UP

DID YOU KNOW...that there is a business plan competition going on right now? Win cash prizes from a pool equivalent to two bil-lion VND!Check online.rmit.edu.vn!


Dear RMIT students, have you ever wonder what is it you have been doing for the last ten years? Why do we go to schools and universities, which probably cost our parents quite a lot of money? And let’s be honest, most of us don’t even enjoy sitting in classes, so why go through this whole process at all? For the majority of us, the whole point of going to school is so that you can get a career and hopefully make a living off that career. Of course we are not contended with just making a living, we want to live comfortably. As rational human beings, we want to earn money, the more the better. If you don’t care about money and are perfectly happy where you are, well I’m glad for you. If you are like me, and you want to get rich, please keep on reading. For the sake this article, let’s say that the ultimate point of getting an education is to get rich.But just how rich is enough? How much money do you have earn to be qualified as rich? As we all know, human beings have unlim-ited wants and needs so there is not really a limit to how much is enough. To complicate matters, every one of us has different levels of wants and needs. I might be satisfied with driving a car

to work, however Quan might not be satisfied until he has seven different cars, one for each day of the week. To avoid treading into the realm of philosophical debates, let’s say the number is a million dollar. A concrete number for our discussion: one mil-lion USD, roughly twenty-one billion VND.You already spent the best years of your life doing the thing you hate (going to school), so it better be worth it no? I’d say a million dollar is a fair prize. Of course, no one is just going to hand you the cash upon graduation. You will have to earn it.Let’s examine several ways one can earn a million dollars (legally). How hard could it be?

• Youcouldinheritthemoney.This way requires the least effort on your part: just sit and wait! Unfortu-nately most of us do not have dying millionaire relatives. Besides, I’m sure they would much rather donate their fortune to charity than giving it you, you lazy bum!

• Youcouldwinthelottery!Ifyou buy enough lottery tickets, even-tually you will win something right? Although the chance of you winning any significant amount is so ridicu-lously miniscule that it is not worth the investment. Statistically speaking, by the time you manage to win the lottery, you will be lucky if the value of your prize manages to cover all those money you spent buying lot-tery tickets.

• Ifyouhaveincredibletal-ents, you should sign up on one of the popular reality TV shows these days. First step to stardom! A million dollars is nothing to a celebrity right? Trust me, whatever it is you think you can do, there are thousands of other people who can probably do it better than you. Unless you are a truly exceptional genius (unlikely), it takes more than just talents to become a celebrity, if it were easy,

How hard can it be?

C U R R E N T MAG A Z I N E E D I TO R H A I D U Y E X P LO R E S S E V E R A L WAYS O N E C A N ( L E G A L LY ) E A R N A M I L L I O N D O L L A R S .

HOW TO MAKE A MILLION DOLLARS?

I S U P P O S E M A R R Y I N G T H E M O N E Y I S A LWAY S A N O P T I O N . . .PHOTO VIA NOLA.COM


everyone would be doing it instead of going to school.

• Anotherwaywouldbetosimply put $5 in a bank account every day. $5 is really a tiny amount; most people can make much more than $5 per day. Put the money in a saving account, if the interest is 10%, then you only have to wait 42 years to make a million bucks. But seri-ously who want to wait 42 years?

So no, there’s no easy way to get a million dollars. But do not despair, it is certainly not impossible! I will be introducing to you three differ-ent paths that would lead you to the ultimate achievement of earning a million dollars. Let’s call them the employee, the entrepreneur and the investor.

Bear in mind that none of these paths are easy, nor can they guar-antee you success. They all require different degrees of hard work, dedication, smart thinking, creativity, knowledge and soft skills. Sounds like too much effort? Keep in mind that you will have a much better chance of getting your hands on those sweet million dollars here rather than say, winning the lottery or trying to become a celebrity. It all depends on the path you choose and how you proceed from there.

So here is it in a nutshell, the very basic (we will go into more details in the next issue):

• The employee: You apply for a job at the entry level. You keep working hard and slowly climbing up the corporate ladder. From the lowly new guy you become the senior, the supervisor, the assistant manager, the manager, the director, etc. It might take years, decades for most people but once you make it to man-aging position you will most likely get paid very well. How well exactly? The average salary for bank CEOs in Vietnam is a million USD a year, roughly 1.7 billion VND per month. That’s quite a lot right?

• The entrepreneur: You startup your own business. Your business might thrive or it might fail. If it fails, you learn from your mis-takes and startup again and again until you do it right. Once your busi-ness is growing, you can either find investor and expand it, or sell the business. And there’s nothing to stop you from starting another business if the first one is doing well. The entrepreneur is certain a risky path to take, but the greater the risk the greater the reward. If you manage to do it right, you will get to the goal of one million dollar much faster than the employee would.

THE AVERAGE SALARY

FOR BANK CEOS IN

VIETNAM IS A MILLION

USD A YEAR, ROUGHLY

1.7 BILLION VND PER

MONTH. THAT’S QUITE

A LOT RIGHT?

• The investor: If you have a little bit of money, you can start investing. Buy stocks, gold, real estates, wait for the price to go high and sell. Profit! Well it is actually not that simple. To be an effective investor requires you have informa-tion, you always have to know ahead of the competition, constantly on the move. You have to make deci-sions what to buy, when to buy and how much to buy, as well as what to sell, when to sell and how much to sell. But even if you manage to do all of that well, there is always risk involved. In other words, even the most prepared investor might fall victim to bad luck.

We won’t discuss any further about the investor since this option is not really relevant to RMIT students. Because of the gambling nature of this path, I don’t recommend you follow it in this economy. But if this is what you would like to do, you are welcome to write for us about your opinion!In the next issue we will discuss in depths about the employee and the entrepreneur, the pros and cons of each option, and most importantly, which one is best suited for your personality?

Hai Duyto be continued

YO U K N O W YO U WA N N A B E L I K E S C R O O G E M C D U C KPHOTO VIA WALT DISNEY


“You have to promise you won’t fall in love with me.” – Jamie Sullivan

T H E R E I S A LWAY S R O O M F O R S O M E R O M A N C E

A WALK TOREMEMBER

Alright, I’ll just fall in love with this sweet love story.

Seeing any recent chic-flick movie poster and its first 20 minutes, I can tell exactly what’s next. “A walk to remember” is an exception. Filmed in 2002, the movie is a bit slow and boring for some. But if you’re a fan of romance genre, the movie is not only soft, sweet and romantic, but also filled with real-life’s surprises. To all young lovers (and future lovers), “A walk to remember” is for you

As stated by Nicholas Starks, “first you will smile, and then you will cry”, the movie will take you on a roller coaster trip at full speed. “A walk to remember” begins with a typical chic-flic plot. A cool, popular but rebellious, heartbroken trouble-maker, Landon Carter (by Shane West) somehow is forced to work

with a quiet, intelligent and beauti-ful Jamie Sullivan (by Mandy Moore) whose father is the local reverend. Predictably, they fall in love with each other and their love blossoms then they live happily ever after. The end.

Just kidding!!! The sweet romance makes “A walk to remember” distinct from other teenage romance mov-ies, soft and velvet like an old fairy tale. At some points, it is also a bit corny due to its novel set in the 50s and its ideal love story. The romantic setting is too perfect and unreal but it will leave you smiling nonetheless. Furthermore, the love story of two young birds still feels natural and smooth. Specifically all guys will find themselves once in Landon’s shoes, the transformation from a young boy to a responsible man which is also known as maturing. And that was just the beginning. Here are some spoilers for those who are still not convinced that this is an epic romance film.

The second part begins from when Jamie insists on breaking up with Landon because Jamie has blood cancer and she’s going to die soon. Wait, this isn’t some Korean TV series. Several years ago, that kind of drama is used as a tear jerking and money milking method, favourite of all film directors. But this is a bit different, if you watch carefully, you will’ notice that there have been subtle hints throughout the whole movie. Why a

reverend can easily entrust his pre-cious daughter to a total stranger. When I watched it the 2nd time, I felt like a retard because the hidden secret in almost every scene is so obvious! The movie also seems very concise as it tried to put the whole book into 1 film. As a result, no scene is redundant or nonsense but always meaningful. Jamie herself has 1 wish in her life while others may think of it being silly: to witness a miracle. It sounds a bit too passive but actually, she has made the miracle herself and to me, she’s the miracle. Watch the film and see what I mean

As for the soundtrack, it is a bit boring and odd if you don’t like the classic Pop music. I don’t like it either. But the soundtrack fits very well with the plot and the movie. The only song I may recommend to you is Only Hope – Mandy Moore. For Korean drama viewers, they will recognise this song easily as it has been used in Dream High – needless to say, Hye Mi and Sam Dong‘s love story is somewhat similar to Langdon and Jamie’s. Check it out

If you’re looking for a movie with glorious visuals or breathtaking scene, well, go to the cinema and buy yourself a 3D movie ticket. Set up in a decade ago, to compare AWTR to re-cent movie is like compare The Matrix to Avatar. As for myself, this movie is worth watching any day.

Tran Vu


2011 WHITE CHRISTMAS PARTY - HOSTED BY THE RMIT EVENT CLUB

PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE RMIT EVENT CLUB

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