Student Spotlight: Lihn Tran, College of Health Sciences

The Walden University Writing Center is privileged to work with talented students. In the Student Spotlight Series, we aim to support incredible work our students do, both in and out of the classroom. The goal of the Student Spotlight Series is to provide the Walden community with a place to build bridges and make connections by developing shared understanding of the diverse and varied student journey. Students share stories about their writing process, their efforts towards social change, and their motivations for pursuing higher education. We ask questions, and students generously answer.

This Student Spotlight features Lihn Tran, student of the College of Health Sciences.

How would you describe your personality to someone just meeting you? Someone that just met me will think I am very social and talkative; however, I am mostly private and keep to a small group.

Tell us about your writing process. My writing process involves breaking down the points I need to address and researching each point. I then write what is on my mind regarding the topics. I come back and support my thoughts with researched articles/evidence. I reread the paper to make sure everything makes sense and make changes as needed. I then run the paper through Grammarly. Lastly I submit the paper to Nicole at Walden's Writing Center. Nicole often make great suggestions that make my papers sound brilliant.

What is one Writing Center service you would recommend to new students? The one Writing Center Service I would definitely recommend over the others is the paper reviews. Working with Nicole has greatly improved my writing and make me more confident.

What are some of the most useful lessons you've learned through paper reviews? Some of the most useful lessons I’ve learned through paper reviews are practicing concision and limiting passive sentences. 

What inspires you to write? I mainly write papers for my classes. The thing that inspires me to write is a topic that I am passionate about.

Can you describe one writing project or assignment that meant a lot to you in some way? One project that I completed that meant a lot to me was my paper for my policies class. Through this paper I realized my passion for empowering my profession through participation in the political arena. I have never been a political person, however, after this paper, I became more active in my nursing organization and am assisting with the efforts to push for the nurse practitioner’s independent practice in Texas.

What is your educational background? I have my associate's degree in nursing from a community college, my bachelor's of nursing at Western Governor University, and I am currently pursuing my master's degree in psychiatric/mental health nurse practitioner at Walden.

Have you encountered any challenges while at Walden and how did you overcome those challenges? Challenges at Walden and in most online classes would be the autonomy. Most classes are self-taught and self-motivated with very little interaction from the instructors. Another problem is if you have questions, there is really no one to ask. Questions to instructors take time to turnaround, often past the deadline. The way I cope with this is to work ahead and connect with other classmates. Working ahead gives me time to ask questions before the work is due. My classmate and I also brainstorm on issue we don’t fully comprehend, often answering the questions ourselves.

How has your education at Walden influenced how you think about social change? I took a policy class at Walden that ignited my passion for social change. I hope to lend my efforts and votes to help the community as well as promote the nursing profession.

The Walden Writing Center provides information and assistance to students with services like live chat, webinars, course visits, paper reviews, podcasts, modules, and the writing center webpages. Through these services they provide students assistance with APA, scholarly writing, and help students gain skills and confidence to enhance their scholarly work.

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