Today we’d like to introduce you to Linda Nguyen.
Linda, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
So first, my graduate school journey. My experience with research started while I was in high school. I attended the Texas Academy of Math and Science at UNT in Denton for my junior and senior years of high school, and there we were encouraged to take advantage of the fact that we were at UNT, so I started pursuing research opportunities around campus. I ended up working with Dr. Fang Ling-Lu in UNT’s speech pathology department, and I really don’t think I could have asked for a better first mentor. She encouraged my research pursuits and was also a listening ear whenever I needed some advice. Going into my undergraduate studies at Baylor University, I was even more eager to start doing more research, but this time I chose to study human behavior because it was a natural interest of mine to understand people, and so I started working in Dr. Wade Rowatt’s social psychology lab where I completed an honors thesis on implicit and explicit attitudes on interracial dating. During this time period, I was debating between going to medical school and going to graduate school. On some level, I knew that I needed to pick between the two, but I wanted so badly to keep my options open and ended up at the University of Texas at Dallas doing my Master’s degree in Applied Cognition and Neuroscience. And at the end of my Master’s degree, I applied into the Ph.D. program where I am currently a student working with Dr. Daniel Krawczyk studying social cognition — particularly the neural aspects of social perceptions and interactions.
The second major part of my life currently is my fitness journey. I currently teach yoga classes at studios around the DFW area. Originally I began yoga when I started my Ph.D. student after talking to some graduate students who mentioned that a consistent fitness routine was important for achieving a good balance, so I started practicing power yoga as a way to work out, and I enjoyed being challenged with various arm balances and inversions in class. I received my 200-hour RYT certification in 2017 and started teaching pretty soon after that. Since starting yoga, I’ve definitely branched out and tried several different styles of yoga though I tend to gravitate mostly toward variants of power yoga. In the summers you can also find me out on a paddleboard doing SUP yoga and trying not to fall in the lake. I’m also a pretty avid acroyogi. I’ve taught some pop-up classes around town and try to practice whenever I have the chance.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
No, it hasn’t been a smooth road. I’ve dealt with a lot of disappointment, and I often struggle with feeling like I’m not good enough.
As a yoga teacher, one of the biggest struggles I’ve had to work with is accepting that no matter how hard I try, some students are just going to hate my classes. I’ve had ClassPass reviews drive me to tears, and I’ve constantly walked a fine line between allowing myself to be authentic as an instructor and the urge to teach a cookie-cutter flow to appease more students.
As a graduate student, I think I have similar struggles with feeling like I’m not good enough. Ph.D. programs often accept more students than there possible post-doc or academic jobs available. Sometimes it’s hard to not look at other people and compare the number of publications, presentations, or other accolades. It’s hard to practice non-attachment when you get back a particularly brutal round of edits or reviews.
In both areas, I’ve found myself having to develop a thicker skin. As one of my professors told me after I received a not super great teaching assistant review, take what will make you better and leave the rest. I’ve been really focused on that whenever I find myself feeling defeated or comparing myself to others too much.
Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
I think the one quality that has been important to my success is to have really high expectations for myself and those around me or in other words this intense need I have to prove myself to pretty much everyone around me. It’s both a positive and negative quality, but I strive to be good at everything I set my mind towards doing. I don’t have to be the best, but I’d like to think that I strive to be solidly above average, and that extends to those around me as well. When it comes to my fellow graduate students or my fellow yogis, I always want to encourage those around me to strive to be their best as well, and I would like to think that mentality influences the work that I produce and the types of yoga classes I teach.
Contact Info:
- Email: lindathunguyen@gmail.com
- Instagram: @lindadoesyoga
- Twitter: @linda_nguyennn
Image Credit:
Vu Man, Trina Severson, Mili Arenas, Anthony Laurienti, Naomi McCoy, Kolin Smith
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