Hi there! 

My name is Trang Dang, a Vietnamese academic expat in Zürich, Switzerland. It was a long and full-of-surprises journey for me from Vietnam to Switzerland, but there is one thing always the same – me being a scientist/academia throughout the journey. Hence, the combination Nerdy and Expat came to my mind.

My Journey

In 2018, after the Bachelor graduation, I started my journey from Hanoi International Airport, willing to discover the possibilities of scientific careers around the world. Until now, I have lived and studied in five countries including Japan, France, Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland. So on average, I changed my residency to a new country every six months! Currently I am settling down in Switzerland, expectedly for at least four years, to pursue a doctorate degree in Molecular Biology at ETH Zürich. Afterwards, we never know which door would open and where my next home would be 🙂

Being an expat, or expatriate, is very different from being a tourist. As a tourist, I observe the new lands through a lens of a foreigner, excitedly and curiously. As an expat, I integrate myself as quickly yet carefully as possible into every aspect of the new lands, such as language, laws and work culture. The integration process is sometimes challenging, especially when dealing with lengthy bureaucracy, facing such a worldwide pandemic as Covid19, or trying to differentiate integration versus assimilation.