<p>i agree bo_bombers...you know what happens when you assU me things! ;) i say thats pretty intense, i would never do it, but if thats what he wants to do good for him for going for it</p>
<p>He is a nice person. I take a physics class with him and he never takes notes. You can certainly get a sense of the bitterness in his tone from his quotes in the article. I really feel sad for him. </p>
<p>Maybe he's doing this because he didn't get the Jefferson Scholarship and/or didn't get into a better school: to prove himself, perhaps.</p>
<p>or maybe hes doing it for financial reasons like he said in the article...?</p>
<p>If he had legit financial reasons, then I'm sure UVA's rather generous financial aid program would have him covered. Or he could take out loans.</p>
<p>I doubt that finances motivated him because 1) he lives in NoVa, 2) is instate, and 3)could have surely found scholarships to cover the expenses. I firmly believe that pride and bitterness had a lot to do with his actions.</p>
<p>...or the "asian parent" phenomenon. I found this quote interesting:</p>
<p>
[quote]
"They would always make me feel like I wasn't working hard enough. Now doing this, they can't really say anything. Because you can't question if I am doing my best, if not pretty close to it. They definitely don't call me as much as to how I am doing, because I think they pretty much realize that I am very busy."
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I swear to god, you tell me parents like that aren't being pushy and I'll eat my hat. The kid went to TJ and came to UVA as an Echols Scholar and his parents make him feel like he's not doing enough? Please.</p>
<p>1) Living in NOVA doesn't make you rich.
2) Being instate doesn't mean you can automatically afford your education.
3) Finding outside scholarships is sometimes hard becuase a lot of them examine financial need which is not based on PERSONAL ability to pay, but rather FAMILY ability to pay which I'll address below.</p>
<p>Just becuase your FAFSA says you don't need financial aid doesn't mean that one's tuitition is automatically paid for. Suppose his parents have the money but don't believe in financing their children's education? Guess what - AccessUVa doesn't cover that.
As far as outside scholarships - as he says in the article, he has enough for this year. My guess is that he didn't want to take out loans if he didn't have to (that seems to be a generally accepted rule of thumb..) and so he decided to work his <...> off and graduate in one year. </p>
<p>It seems like a lot of people are bitter because they realize they wouldn't be able to pull this off so they settle for attacking the character of someone that they most likely haven't even seen in person, let alone had an oppurtunity to get to know. Get over it - He worked hard, cut him some slack.</p>
<p>I don't think anyone in this thread is <em>bitter</em> about anything. We've all just pointed out the obvious - that he likely is missing out on a lot and that there are always ways to finance an education. Ever here of loans? Or notice that he said he was looking at jobs starting in the $70k/year range? People get by. My dad did, and others in my family have. You can't call people bitter because they interpret a situation differently than you. We're not trashing the dude - clearly, he's very hardworking and apt in his studies - we're just astonished that he would gloss over his time at UVA in the manner that he has thus far.</p>
<p>bo_bomber:</p>
<p>You're right. Living in NoVa doesn't make you rich. But it should make UVa affordable on some reasonable level. This should address 2 as well. As for 3, check this out: <a href="http://www.fastweb.com/%5B/url%5D">http://www.fastweb.com/</a>. There are so many scholarships out there not based on financial need. </p>
<p>"It seems like a lot of people are bitter because they realize they wouldn't be able to pull this off so they settle for attacking the character of someone that they most likely haven't even seen in person, let alone had an oppurtunity to get to know. Get over it - He worked hard, cut him some slack."</p>
<p>Why would anyone want to do what he did? I don't think anyone here is bitter in attacking David's character, but at most, we are just commenting on his actions. I think this is not so bad since he obviously wanted everyone to know about his endeavors (why else would you allow the CD to publish a whole page of info about you). </p>
<p>I've see him in person and I've said before, he's a nice person. Definitely he worked hard. But as usual, when something extra-ordinary occurs, people ask questions and wonder. So that's what we're doing: wondering and asking questions. That's all.</p>
<p>I agree. That really jumped out at me. My first thought was "wow, good for that guy, he must be very ambitious and intelligent" but as I read the quotes he gave I began to feel a bit sorry for him. I'm sure that sounds condescending, but I don't mean it that way. There's no question that he is brilliant.</p>
<p>"I guess my parents have always been supportive in the way they raised me," Banh said. "They would always make me feel like I wasn't working hard enough. Now doing this, they can't really say anything. Because you can't question if I am doing my best, if not pretty close to it."</p>
<p>That made me very sad. He says they are supportive of him and somehow connects that to the fact that they make him feel like he's never working hard enough? To me, that's not being supportive, that's being overly demanding and pushy. He says now "they can't really say anything" as though he's just doing it to shut them up, and then he can't even accept the reality that he's done his best in THIS. That there was something he should have and could have done differently and regrets it.</p>
<p>I read it to my fiance and the first thing he said was "is he Asian?" I looked around online and saw that he was. Many first-generation Asian students in America have amazing, impressive work ethic, but it seems their parents are so pushy and demanding that it borders on abusive and cruel.</p>
<p>Bo, even TJ knew there's more to life than just academics.</p>
<p>This kid is blasting through college in order to blast through grad school...etc. While he's obviously intelligent, and probably has a photographic memory, he's not gonna be as well rounded as say someone develops a social network and experiences what college life is truly about.</p>
<p>His parents are keeping the pressure on and he wants to tell them to shut up. But he can't so he's overwhelming himself by taking 30-40 credits a semester. Sounds to me like he isn't breaking away from them in a healthy manner.</p>
<p>I wonder what his expectations of his kids will be?</p>
<p>No, this doesn't sound healthy to me.</p>