- BRENDAN TRUONG -
"Welcome to my website."



Who am I?

Computer Engineering Student with an interest in Software Development

Passion - Adventurous - Determined


Background

Born the eldest of three, and being the only member of my immigrant household well versed with English, I've had responsibilities for as long as I can remember. Helping my mother and grandma make phone calls, translate forms, and take care of the house in their absence, babysitting my siblings and tutoring them where they had trouble with school, I'm used to being proactive and constantly working. Needing to be a pillar of support for the women in my house, while being a leader for my younger siblings, I've strived to excel my whole life.

Money was tight at home, so I quickly started working in high school, and thus far have juggled through 8 jobs to be fully self sufficient in paying for my own living expenses and education - while pitching in for my family when I can.

This financial burden motivated me in school. I was constantly top of my class and graduated high school with a weighted 4.52 GPA, ranked third among 452 students, all the while participating in various sports and clubs, leading the Red Cross Club, and acting as secretary for the Math Honors Society. I took 9 AP Exams and passed all of them, giving me 38 college credits upon entering university. Now at UMASS, I'm maintaining a cumulative 3.819 GPA while continuing to work part time and assisting constantly at home.

Skills

24 hours a day, 7 days a week feels so constraining. Personal needs mixed with all of these obligations, it's easy to feel overwhelmed. However, coding has become my freedom.

Admittedly I'm a late coder, not touching it until senior year of high school, but from my first Java class I knew this is what I wanted to do. Coding itself is a broad term, with all the software and languages available to us, and those that are introduced each day. I'd say I love coding despite all its broadness because it gives me a sense of freedom amidst all my commitments. It's a creative outlet, a puzzle to enjoy and relax to, a brain stimulant, a useful tool in life, and a means for me to destress. I'm thankful that Computer Engineering is my major, and also my road to a livelihood.

Skilled in Java, Python, C/C++, AWS, HTML, CSS, Javascript, SQL, NoSQL, Oracle, Matlab, MIPS, React, AWS, Git, Excel

Experience with BizNuvo, AWS, Linux OS, Postman, Dbeaver, Arduino, AVR Microcontrollers, Altera Tools, NIOS II FPGA

Above of all else, I have a strong work ethic and willingness to learn.



Education

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world” – Nelson Mandela



Springfield Central High School

Sept. 2012 - June. 2017

Highschool Degree

 In high school, I was eager to overload my resume and do as much as I can to best showcase my capabilities. With that mindset, I participated in whatever I could be it clubs, sports, or volunteer opportunities, while juggling a 4.52 GPA .

I graduated ranked 3rd out of a class size of 452 students. Of the 9 AP Exams I took, I passed all with high scores, earning the title of National AP Scholar with Distinction. Then, on my college placement exams, I scored a 1500 Overall on the SAT (With a 700 on the English portion and a perfect 800 on the Math portion), along with a 33 on the ACT (Also performing perfectly on the Math portion).

Besides academics, I was a member of various clubs with multiple leadership positions (Vice-President of Red Cross Club and Secretary of Math Honors Society). I was in both the National Honors Society and National Math Honors Society. To test my skills in academia, I participated in the WNE Annual Chemistry Olympiad, Moody Math Programming Competition, and was captain of the school’s Mathletes.

Beyond my passion for academia, I’m also an avid fan of sports. I played for my school’s junior varsity soccer and varsity tennis teams, of which my teammates and I won our school’s first tennis banner ever.

I also made sure to give back to my community through volunteer work, performing services for the Key Club, tutoring through the Math Honors Society, providing volunteer hours to the National Honors Society, meanwhile attending the Buddhist Youth Association on Sunday and performing community service there.

Thanks to all my efforts, upon graduation I was presented many awards. I was admitted into the Society of Women Engineers, earned the titles of MassMutual Academic Achievers, AP Scholar with Distinction, recognized by the Vietnamese-American Civic Association, and was nominated an Elk Scholar.

For my transcript, please download at this hyperlink: Brendan's High School Transcript


UMASS Amherst

Sept. 2017 - Present

Bachelor of Science in Computer Systems Engineering

 I entered UMASS with 38 college credits solely from AP tests. This allowed me to skip a level in seniority, as my credit worth was equivalent to that of a Sophomore.

With a desire to be self-sufficient, I've paid for all my college expenses and living needs including tuition and housing from working constant jobs over the past four years. This entailed part time jobs during the school year (of upwards of 30 hours) and full time jobs over breaks and summers.

Despite that, I have constantly achieved the Dean's List and am currently maintaining a 3.798 GPA. This allowed me to be accepted by the Honors College along with being invited to various honors societies.

In my major of Computer Engineering, I found myself more geared and liking in software.

Thus, in my free time I participate in the clubs the campus offers, along with investing into online courses outside of school such as O'Reilly and Code Academy lessons on Web Development, React, AWS, and etc.

For my transcript, please download at this hyperlink: Brendan's College Transcript


-Experiences-

"Be brave. Take risks. Nothing can substitute experience." - Paulo Coelho



College: Work and Education Balance

Fall 2017 - Present



Part-Time Jobs and Coursework
 I’ve always strived to succeed in life, witnessing the financial burdens and hardwork of my mother, I’ve been motivated since young to do my best and help her as much as I can. Upon entering college, I vowed that with this new stage in life that I’d start becoming self-sufficient and seeked to pay for my tuition, housing, and meal plans.

Through my first three years of college I juggled through 7 different jobs. This was because I lived on campus during the school year, but stayed at home through long summer breaks. With this frequent location displacement, I had to constantly find temporary work for each living situation. I’m rather thankful for this challenge as with each job experience was in turn also a learning experience. I had to pick up the work and tasks in each job, learning the dynamics of my new environments, and developing social skills with constantly changing coworkers. As a timid introvert, my work experiences helped me open up and forced me to develop social skills needed in the real world. With enough effort, I turned my vow into a means of self development while also earning enough to be financially independent since the age of 17.

While working upwards of 30 hours a week, I still challenged myself in my education. The reason I majored in computer engineering was that I learned I’d be able to pick up both software and hardware skills and diversify my skill portfolio. The major was unique in being able to take Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, and Computer Science courses, however with this privilege came challenges in having a demanding class curriculum and mandating a senior project. I’m proud to say I’ve been able to persevere through a challenging major while keeping productivity and challenging myself through other spheres of life. Without these pursuits, I wouldn’t be who I am today.


MassMutual

Summer 2020


MassMutual has been my first formal corporate position, and I’m more than grateful for the learning experiences and opportunities they’ve given me as an intern and now as a part time worker. For context, MassMutual is a large life insurance company listed amongst the Fortune 100. Albeit being life insurance focused, they also offer retirement and investment services with a goal to secure the futures of policyholders and to spread a mutual lifestyle.



Application Developer Intern
 Through my summer at MassMutual, I interned under their BizNuvo team. BizNuvo is an up and coming self service platform, that allows the programmer to easily manipulate databases, call external APIs, invoke rules, schedulers, and overall provides capability to quickly develop forms and applications for business use.

Within my initial weeks, I was quickly taught and trained on the platform, learning it well enough that I later came to play a strong supportive role on the team. My duty was to take on tasks from other colleagues in order to enhance the team’s overall efficiency, while juggling my own individual projects. That being, while helping my team members on their work, I was also able to create a form to directly alter Reference details, and a Book of Business form, which both have come to be used by the business side.

MassMutual is unique in that they admit a large class of interns, and also provide for various training and education regarding their business while also providing activities to socialize and network. Thus besides my own work in the summer, I was fortunate enough to take the courses and training they offered and gain an overall understanding of insurance, investing, and financial services. What I enjoyed about the company is they promoted individual learning and gave us access to services such as O’Reilly and Linkedin Learning for our own pursuit of knowledge. Thanks to that, I was also able to take three online courses while interning, covering Amazon AWS, React and Git.

I’m fortunate to have been given the opportunity to intern at MassMutual. From learning the BizNuvo technology, education regarding the insurance and finance industry, independent learning options, and social/networking opportunities, my experience was bountiful and spurred my growth in a variety of areas. Before I finished the summer as an intern, I categorized and rewrote the piles of documentation I took note of over the summer, and made a 20 page comprehensive guide for future interns - so that they could quickly adjust to their new found positions and make full use of the learning treasure trove at MassMutual. This guide was combined with hours of recorded meetings, that I hoped would nurture future interns.

Junior Developer
 Thankfully my efforts and work were recognized and I was rehired to work as a Junior Developer, part time through the school year. Continuing my supportive role on the team, I practiced dexterity and flexibility by taking on work to ease the load off my coworkers. Meanwhile, I was also placed on a subunit focused on creating an Asset Allocation Model form for business usage. Now, with the company’s transition to Empower, I’ve been repositioned to the services team.


AWS Certification and Senior Design Project

Fall 2020 - Spring 2021 (cert. July 2020)



AWS - Cloud Practioner Certified
 Through my summer at MassMutual, I took a comprehensive O’Reilly course regarding Amazon AWS. Learning how prevalent AWS is in use, and how diverse and applicable its services were, I challenged myself to earn the AWS Cloud Practitioner Certification. Thus throughout the summer, I studied and practiced various AWS tools and services, before garnishing a comprehensive understanding and passing the certification exam.

AWS Application [Smart Dropbox - MG9K]

At UMASS Amherst, the ECE department has a graduation requirement in which all the seniors are split within groups of 3-4 members. Each group must design, code, and build a project to present at the annual year end showcase. My group decided to work towards a power efficient smart mailbox, under my proposal of the idea. Thus I also became the project leader, while holding the backend developer role. The idea of the project is to add security to postal services, by having a smart dropbox that requires package authentication through barcode scanning, before opening and allowing package reception. This dropbox would communicate with a mobile application so that users could upload barcodes, view historical logs, and unlock the mailbox remotely. For more details of the project, visit our project site at the following link:

With this project I was able to apply my AWS certification while also developing leadership skills. I devised a roadmap for the team, in having the wifi module on the dropbox communicate with AWS IoT’s backend, and having the mobile application utilize a GraphQL API from AWS AppSynch. I worked with our mobile app developer and hardware duo to help them utilize AWS libraries and connect with our AWS backend. Thus, I was able to create the entire backend, and make a means to communicate and manipulate data from the mobile app to the hardware and vice versa, while playing a hand in helping other aspects of the project.

This was a great learning experience in not only applying my new found AWS knowledge, but also taking charge of a team, and producing a project idea based on the members skills and planning accordingly. I learned a lot leading my team mates and we have so far been able to procure working subcomponents with a working prototype.


Website Design and Coding

Winter 2020



Independent Winter Endeavor
 Through winter break of my senior year, I didn’t want to be idle and stagnant. Working only part time for MassMutual, I still had time to invest and thus I endeavored to pick up web development and learn both HTML and CSS. The summer before, I had already taken courses on the two languages, but had yet an opportunity to apply them. Thus I decided to create a website for my senior design project group to both develop skills and finish that work ahead of the coming semester, and also procure this website you are now browsing through to showcase my education, experiences, and to introduce myself to others.

You can check out the website I created in the following hyperlink: https://helmphlyx.github.io/MG9K_Website/


-To learn more about my experiences, skills, and achievements, check out my Linkedin-



Now, Deeper


When designing the layout of this website, I had to reevaluate myself and delegate what to present. This made me realize that I could go on and on about my experiences, education, and skill set, however beyond those there are so many other things about myself that keep my engine running. There are so many facets of my life and components to who I am, thus for a true representation of myself I must also disclose my little quirks and joys in life. That being said, the following are a few interesting tidbits of my hobbies and what I do in my free time.

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Here are some aspects of my life that make me, Brendan.

"Food Blog"

From friends to family and anyone else that knows me, I have this odd duality in that I’m extremely cheap and frugal. I constantly create budgets, make personal spreadsheets to manage my finances, spending, financial aid, and anything that comes to money.

However, food is my kryptonite. I love to eat out and lose my senses when it comes to food. To me, one of the delights in life is being able to live in the modern century, where we are blessed to be surrounded by foods of all cultures and have access to myriads of cuisines. Thus, you can often find me scrolling through yelp or dining at each new found establishment I stumble upon.

This passion for food has led to me and my S.O. opening our own food instagram, to detail and review all the food we happen to try on our adventures.

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"Photography Page"

I tend to rush things in life, trying to do too much in too little time. A constant reminder in the back my mind is to slow down and enjoy life. Through the years, I’ve tried to incorporate meditation to gather my thoughts, and habits of appreciating my surroundings.

Sometimes I’m fortunate enough to be placed in a beautiful environment, have the time to take in to myself, and find the right angle to capture a "never enough, yet still captivating" portion of the world around me.

These instances I share on my photography instagram. I’m not actively pursuing photography, I just love being able to document the beauty around me.

"Cooking"

Since I’m such a foodie, it’s to no surprise that I also love cooking. I try to cook at least once a week, brewing new concoctions and baking new treats for my family to try. It feels great taking raw products and transforming them into delicious meals for others to try. I honestly love cooking just to try and bring a smile to my S.O.’s and family’s faces.

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"Fitness"

Of course with all of that cooking and eating out I need to balance things. I regularly fit some type of physical activity in my schedule, be it working out at the gym, or playing tennis. I fell in love with tennis since high school, and have continued to play it whenever I get the chance. Over the course of the pandemic, I’ve built my own at home gym. Fitness keeps my health and mind in check while giving me a means to physically relieve all the stress school and work builds up.

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From claw machines to building gundams, and editing photos, my interests are wide and varied. I love trying new things and getting my toes wet into whatever I can. One of my greatest joys and pass times is creative writing. My mind is constantly thinking of the most absurd things, and rather it be a distraction, I use it to my benefit to procure fun and unique writing pieces. I’ll post some here for your entertainment.



Creative Writing Pieces