My name is Just Hoang Anh and I am an international student who love traveling, so I decided to visit Gettysburg for a few years. My first year in Gettysburg was a very interesting and unique experience for me. It was a huge change. Everything here was different than it was from home: people, food, culture, surroundings, nature, climate, school, and more. To mitigate the cultural shock, I was involved in clubs, such as Asian Student Alliance, Vietnamese Student Association, and International Club, which were nice places to chill out and learn new people from different cultures. Moreover, I worked in the Bullet Hole with very nice people. Apart from that I had so much free time, so I took some classes, which made me want to major in Mathematics and Computer Science. But actually I did not come to Gettysburg for 4 years just to study. Gettysburg is a special place that is rich in history which is worth to learn and so my main goal is to explore the integral part of Gettysburg, the Battlefield. Unfortunately, during my school year, those 4 classes stole all my free time. Therefore, summer is the only time that I can fulfill my goal.
Fortunately, I got accepted to DTSF which allows me to not only explore Gettysburg Battlefield but also to connect the Gettysburg history with the modern technology. DTSF gives me the very first opportunity to explore and learn virtual reality (VR). Nowadays, VR is a very common word, but it is also good to know its definition. Briefly, VR is a simulation of an environment (doesn’t have to be real) which tries to put the person into that environment by fooling our senses. The modern VR uses computer to generate the content and some goggles to put on a person that wants to be fooled. You can find some better definitions here or there. I have never been in touch with virtual reality and I have never seen Gettysburg Battlefield, so this will be a great challenge for me, but also a lot to learn, which motivates me a lot to learn and explore. I am so glad that I got the opportunity to do work in DTSF and I will try my best to give everyone the results of my work. I am really looking forward to work with other fellows and IT staff.
