"There are no holidays for honours students," says Vi Khanh Truong. You get the feeling, however, that he wouldn’t have it any other way.
It might be mid-semester break, but Khanh has been presenting at the Australian Society for Microbiology conference, lunching with Vietnamese education delegations and nipping in and out of the lab to keep an eye on his latest bacterial research.
Khanh started at Swinburne with Foundation Studies (Science/Engineering), which proved to be an ideal launching ground for a Bachelor of Science (Biochemistry and Chemistry).
"The Foundation course really helped me understand how the education system in Australia works," he says. "It was a great transition into university."
"The Foundation course... was a great transition into university.
Khanh is now halfway through his honours year in the Bachelor of Science (Chemistry) and is currently in the throes of researching bacterial contamination in biomedical implants.
"Research can be really frustrating – 80 per cent of the time you won’t get results," he concedes. "But when you do get a result, it’s so exciting!"