Colin Reed

Cassandra Humphrey

CST 361S

16 October 2019

Service Learning Final Reflection

What did you do at your service site?

The time I spent with my service site was mainly serving two purposes. First there was the time

that I spent directly supporting the community being served by the organization. During this time I was

providing on site technical support. Primarily this involved setting up new technologies (provided by

Audium) for use by at risk communities. I primarily worked with Tu Du Childrens Hospital setting up a

computer and printer system for their use. The second way that I spent my in person time was in

supporting the Audium staff with their general technical questions. These varied greatly and directly

impacted the Audium pursuits very little.

The majority of my time I spent working online. This was the bulk of the efforts that I put

towards Audium’s pursuits. Using this time I build a website based on the Joomla content management

system. At this point I have not completed the site to specifications. A significant amount of development

hours were spent learning about the technology and attempting to debug complications with other parts of

my system.

How did your service contribute to your partner’s organization?

The biggest impact I made on my partner organization was the creation of the site. While it isn’t

completed yet, I firmly believe that once it is done, it will increase the credibility of the Audium
organization significantly. Despite my limited knowledge about the system at play (and PHP

programming of any kind) the results are coming along well. When completed and implemented it will be

a good benefit to Audium. I also contributed to the organization with my in person hours. They were

having difficulties setting up the technology that they had sourced for the community and I was happy to

be able to assist with that. In addition to that direct community support I was also able to answer some of

the questions that they had about technology and its use in general. While some of the questions were of

dubious relation to the organization I still feel it was beneficial in general.

How did the service help the community?

I feel that the biggest way in which I helped the community will be in the increased credibility of

Audium. Often it seems to me that technology practitioners take a back seat to the more direct players in

activities. This is no different. If I can do something to assist Audium in gaining support from corporate

sponsors, I know that support will end up going directly into the community. This method is more

effective than most types of direct involvement due to its long lasting nature. A few hours of website

development could last a small organization such as Audium years. Especially considering the amount of

time that they have been operational without a site. In addition to that I did directly support the

community with my technical skills. Setting up the computer system at the children's hospital was a very

direct method of supporting the community. And one that felt much more rewarding than the hours of

development as well I might add.

Whom did you interact with?

 I interacted primarily with my organization contact. Outside of that I also interacted with various

members of the Audium organization and members of the supported community. These community

members were mainly the orphan children at Tu Du hospital. I also interacted with the corporate and

private sponsors of Audium at two events hosted by Audium.

Much of the discussion around “diversity,” “community,” and “service” centers around questions

of power, privilege, and access in the public sphere. How did the process of building relationships

with the people in your service organization or in your service community go? What has been

challenging about developing good working relationships if any?

The reality of where I am living and the situation in the country in which I am living makes this

question significantly more complex. It’s very easy to say that building relationships in Vietnam is more

difficult than in the United States. What is more difficult for me is isolating the specific reasons for this

change in difficulty. There are a few that I can point to fairly easily, but there may be others that I am

totally unaware of.

One of the most direct barriers to building relationships with the people in my service community

is the barrier of language. The uneducated and children for the most part don’t speak any English. This

makes my interactions with them much more difficult as my Vietnamese is nearly non existent. Another

factor that I believe is a significant hurdle is the massive inequality in socioeconomic status. I took a

significant pay cut when I came to Vietnam (while also moving into what I would consider a generally

more highly paid industry) and I’m still earning multiple times what the average Vietnamese individual is.

And that is only speaking of the average. The group that Audium is attempting to support is earning much

much less than that. The cost of living is lower here, but for these people starvation is a very real and

persistent threat.
 Power, privilege and access are all huge factors in the growth and development of these children.

They have had near zero access to any of these throughout the course of their lives. Part of the reason I

was so excited to provide the computer setup for them was that now they have more direct access to

knowledge. Vietnam is a country that values education heavily. The entire country views education (and

particularly the English language) as a way out of your economic and social situation. I hope for these

children that is true.

Reflect upon how your major learning, for example, classes you have taken, might have impacted

the community in POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE ways?

For the most part my education has had a near zero impact on the community. One notable

exception to that is skills that I try to pass onto my coworkers. The educational system in Vietnam has

been progressing rapidly, but the system that was in place when my coworkers were gaining skills that we

could consider basic just weren’t taught to them. Long term career planning, effective communication

with employers etc. There are is also a significant amount of knowledge that I have tried to pass on from

some of my courses at CSUMB. The use of GIT version control for software development is non existent

here. Whenever I talk to a developer (the ones who work of a comparable company to mine at least) I

always try to suggest starting to use git religiously.

After having taken this course I can now imagine lots of ways that the skills that I have developed

inside and outside of the classroom would be useful and capable of helping the community here. There

are lots of worthy causes in Vietnam. One of my big takeaways from this course is that in addition to

offering funding to these causes, I can also offer my technical knowledge.

How has your service affected your understanding of the social, cultural and civic aspects of your

personal and professional identity?

Since coming to Vietnam I have had issues reconciling my upbringing and the opportunities I

have been offered with the country around me. I wish that I could say I felt like I had served some kind of

penance by doing this service assignment. I haven’t however. The conditions that the disadvantaged in

Vietnam are living in is still terrible, and in comparison I am living a life of luxury. I don’t have the sense

of self importance to think that I am somehow to blame for the difference in positions, I do however think

that having the knowledge that I do, I should do my best to assist everyone regardless of where they come

from. The programmers here are just as intelligent and just as passionate as the ones in America. In many

ways more so. And the one thing that before I would qualify as distinctly American (entrepreneurial

spirit) I have never seen in such a high quantity or quality as in Vietnam.

Service has not changed my understanding of the social, cultural, and civic aspects of my

personal and professional identity. It has however shown me a way that I can change what is around me in

a positive manner. At the end of the day I feel that is much more important and lasting than any sort of

penance I might have hoped to gain out of this endeavor.

What personal strategy have you formed or thought about that will lead you to be part of building a

more just, equitable, and sustainable community around you through your future profession in

communication design or computer science?

I think that is heavily dependent on where I am in my future profession. The massive and

systemic lack of organization here makes it difficult to make a clear plan on how to benefit those in my

community. I plan on returning to the US in the next few years so I think I will focus on that for now. My

family lineage has roots in Native American tribes. While I don’t heavily identify as Native American
myself (nor have I suffered the same struggles as someone coming from that environment) I would still

like to step in and support that group of people. The statistics for Native American children going into

STEM is disconcerting. I would very much like to use my skills and any position which I may have to

support Native American children in their move toward STEM.

What would you recommend the next group of service learners to do if they pursue similar

projects?

I would recommend not. In retrospect I should have directly communicated with the hospital. I

was scared that working significantly with the children there would be too difficult for me on account of

the serious deformities from which the children suffer(due to the use of agent orange defoliant). This

decision is one that I have come to regret. I feel that the hospital would have been much more directed in

their needs and I would have had a much more direct impact. I know that I did good for the community I

served but I could have done much more. I think my advice would be to go towards what you actually feel

passionate about and not make choices that you feel will lessen your burden. I let the fear that I wouldn’t

be able to sustain the scholastic/ personal/ professional pace that I had set deter me from a better project

and community partner.