Mr. Vu Hong is in his third year of the Ph. D. program at The Scripps Research Institute. Where did his journey to success begin? In the ESL Program at the Mid City Campus. Mr. Vu Hong immigrated to the United States from Vietnam in the year 2000. Right away he began studying English in Nancy Johansen’s level 3 ESL class. He proceeded to move through the levels, studying in Cindy Keltner’s level 4 class, Jeannie Ross’ Office Skills VESL class, and Jackie Clifford’s level 6 class. He also studied with Jean All and Paul Herron. After studying ESL for one year in our program, He enrolled at City College and worked as a VESL instructional assistant in Steve Gwynne’s VESL Lab for six months. After two years at City College, he transferred to UC Berkeley where he earned a B.S degree in chemistry. From there he was accepted into the Ph.D. program at Scripps. Driving through the Mid City neighborhood one day in November around break time for the morning ESL program, he decided to stop by and say hello to his previous teachers. They were thrilled to hear about his success.