Chandra

My parents left Bhutan before I was born due to lack of religious freedom and heavy violence.

They entered Nepal with the help of UNHCR and were given temporary tent to stay near a famous river called Kankai.

I was born and raised in Nepal for 16 years.
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Now, I am finishing my Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science at Boise State University.

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Resettlement in Boise
Regardless of the cold weather when I first walked on American soil, I felt confident about peace and freedom, but I was still scared. This might be because I was in a different part of the world without any knowledge about the surroundings.

To get started in Boise, my family, including myself, received tremendous support from the Agency for New Americans. We received multiple donations that included many necessary household items. We were only able to bring limited number of clothing and the store voucher that was provided helped us to stay warm.

The support from the case manager not only allowed us to learn the US system quickly and easily, but she also helped my sister and I to enroll into high school. The employment specialist worked very hard to help my family members to find a job that ultimately stabilized the financial needs. Additionally, with the support from federal money and other cash donation to my family, we were able to improve our quality of life very quickly.

When I started academia as a 10th grader, I had a hard time understanding American English. British English that I learned in the refugee camp was very helpful in terms of writing and reading, but not pronouncing and spelling. First week of school was really hard for me to adapt to the schooling system and I was guided by a new friend. Upon thinking back to those days, I can strongly say that I was going to school because I was told to go. I never thought of understanding the concepts that was taught in class, instead I tended towards memorizing the questions and answers – just like the educational system in our camp.  

A funny experience I had was after being a student for 2 months. It was time to get the student ID at Borah high school. I was next in the queue and was watching a student from Africa giving a pose. I don’t have the habit of showing my teeth when taking profile photo. An ESL teacher came out and said, “Smile. Show your teeth.” He felt shy just like me and he forced himself to show his teeth with a smile by opening his jaw. The teacher saw his smile and said, “Welcome to America!” Even though, my English wasn’t great I still understood and laughed at the situation because it slightly applied to my behavior.

Education and a Bright Future

My favorite memory from childhood was a time in my school when I was in 5th grade. My friends and I used to compete with each other in every educational topic, fun facts, and exams. When it comes to exam time, we studied in groups before and after school to prepare for the upcoming exam. We used to collect previous year’s exams and start writing solutions to those problems to score higher in the entire group.

I still remember during my first term exam, I scored 19.5 points out of 20 in math. This score was 0.5 more than one of my friends. I felt confident over my ability. Upon scoring higher, we had pretty big conversation about the solution of the exam. All competitors gathered up and solved the entire exam to finalize our mistakes. As of today, this remains as my favorite memory from my childhood.

As I finish my Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, I have been working in a research project and developing a web application for Boise State English Department. This website will help Boise community to find an interpreter and other community resources for new immigrants.
I am proud of my two major achievements so far. The first one is being able to speak American English fluently and the second one is obtaining a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science with a zero loan amount. All of my tuitions was paid by scholarships and grants.

I like to travel everywhere to see the natural beauty. During my spare time I like to continue my coding project and play chess when I take break during project development. I also like playing soccer with another player.

Because I received many help to get started in the United States and my career, I would like to inform my community that I am here to help anyone with anything that I know of. I love to welcome anybody if they are having problems with their electronic devices such as laptop, desktop, printer, etc. Ultimately, I am here to support America and I will continue to help develop our community further in technology.