Campus Life

Texas A&M Foundation Trustees Honor Outstanding Student

The Texas A&M Foundation Board of Trustees awarded December 2014 graduate Minhtuan Nguyen with its third Outstanding Student Award.
By Monika Blackwell, Texas A&M Foundation May 7, 2015

Minhtuan Nguyen
Texas A&M Foundation Board of Trustees with Minhtuan Nguyen.

(Texas A&M Foundation)

The Texas A&M Foundation Board of Trustees awarded December 2014 graduate Minhtuan Nguyen with its third Outstanding Student Award during a dinner on Wednesday at Miramont Country Club in Bryan. Former Foundation Trustee Melbern Glasscock and his wife Susanne created the endowed award in 2012 to honor an exceptional student each year with $2,500.

Nguyen was drawn to Texas A&M University because of the friendliness of the Aggie spirit. After his first campus visit, he was so set on attending Texas A&M that he cancelled a planned tour of the University of Texas at Austin.

“What sold me on Texas A&M was how dedicated everyone was to the school and the traditions,” Nguyen said.

A mechanical engineering major with a minor in petroleum engineering, Nguyen was extremely involved in campus activities. In 2012, he became the founder and president of the Texas A&M chapter of the Society of Asian Scientists and Engineers, the first professional organization for Asian Americans on campus. Nguyen was also active in the American Society of Mechanical Engineers throughout his undergraduate career, serving as a peer mentor to underclassmen and assisting recruiting efforts in the Dwight Look College of Engineering by promoting mechanical engineering to prospective students.

“We had many exceptional applicants for this award, but Minhtuan’s determination and enthusiasm stood out to us as we made our final decision,” said Van Taylor, chairman of the Foundation’s Board of Trustees. “He is an excellent representative of the kind of student for whom this award was originally created.”

Nguyen has had many work experiences and internships during his undergraduate career. He began as a freshman intern for the Primary Sourcing Corporation in Houston and went on to secure two separate internships with Shell Oil Company, a move that ultimately led to his full-time position with the company. Now an associate pressure equipment engineer in Deer Park, Texas, Nguyen is responsible for maintaining pressure equipment and ensuring that machinery complies with government standards. He hopes to one day use his engineering talents to find new solutions for energy sources.

“I am passionate about this industry because I want to help improve our country’s energy consumption levels,” Nguyen said. “As more people enter the field with new perspectives, we can invent better ways to extract energy and manage its usage.”

Nguyen ultimately dreams of becoming a subject matter expert in his field, generating new solutions for other engineers. Although he works for a successful company in the oil industry, he says he will always remember his background and what made him successful.

“A lot of people in my family come from poor backgrounds. Education was my only ticket out of that life,” Nguyen said. “And I knew that if I missed that train, it was gone forever. So that’s what drove me to stay up at night and study. I wanted to be better.”

This work ethic helped Nguyen receive a variety of scholarships through the mechanical engineering department, including the Pioneer Natural Resources USA Inc. Scholarship, the Ellison Miles Scholarship and the Schlumberger Scholarship. He was also a Regents Scholar and a recipient of the Conoco Phillips Endowed Foundation Excellence Award.

Nguyen said that these scholarships allowed him to finance his education at Texas A&M and keep his focus in the classroom instead of worrying about working during school. He hopes in the future to fund a scholarship that would support students like him.

“I feel it’s really important to never forget where you come from, no matter how successful you are,” said Nguyen.

Recipients of the Texas A&M Foundation Trustees’ Outstanding Student Award must have a minimum GPR of 3.0, demonstrate financial challenges, embody the university’s core values, and have served as a leader of one or more student organizations or service groups. To be eligible, applicants also must be a current or past recipient of a Foundation-supported scholarship.

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