The bridges that I have to build with my education are the network between people across all levels, the impact to communities all around my country, the confidence to pursue my passions, and the capability to identify interdisciplinary fields of study. The education I absorbed from textbooks and the many hours spent lectures from my learning facilitators is the foundation of all the bridges I have build. For example, when I co-authored the Cambodian Economy book, I used my foundation in economics, current events and politics to share to Cambodian 13 – 18 year olds, the key components that make up their country’s economy. Everything needs a foundation, but a foundation alone will not bridge. So, all of my curiosity from all areas of subjects and additional research is the joint between platforms on my bridges. I was able to write a book that is engaging in secondary and high school students by using powerful phrases, engaging language, interviews, and quotes from other sources. To finish off my bridge, I needed the finishing infrastructure and all the aesthetics and I was able to do that from extracurricular activities, events in which I participated, and the soft skills I have learned. So, I used all the soft skills to lay out the content in a professional book publishing software.
I believe that everything we learn will help us to strengthen our bridge in some way. Through participating in the Pioneer Research Program, I believe that I will be able to build a stronger and more resilient foundation for the bridges to create positive changes in my communities. In addition, through my experiences of completed multiple projects, the biggest barrier for me to expand my influence in the things I did was my background research and my foundations. In order to embrace a bigger change in bigger issues with bigger audiences, a stronger foundation has to be created and the only way to do that is through in-depth and thorough research. Therefore, Pioneer Research Program will provide me the necessary medium to improve my foundation, allow me to explore something new, reduce the risk of failing, and create a path for bigger changes to happen.