Linh Tran: From Struggling with English to a Career as a Medical Assistant

Despite a Number of Obstacles, Determination, Hard Work, and Multiple SBCC Programs Ultimately Led to Success

Credit: Ingrid Bostrom

Branded Content Presented by Santa Barbara City College Office of Communications

Twenty years ago, Linh Tran and her husband left Vietnam for the United States. “I experienced a lot of culture shock,” shared Tran over the phone while on her lunch break at Sansum Clinic (now a part of Sutter Health), where she works as a medical assistant.

Leaving Vietnam meant parting with not only her home but also her closest friends and family. She felt the weight of loneliness immediately. “So I cried most of the time,” she recalled. “I didn’t have anyone to talk with, no friends around, and I cannot talk to my family because I don’t want them to worry about me.”

Amid this isolation, Tran’s biggest hurdle was the language barrier. She started taking non-credit ESL classes at Santa Barbara City College (SBCC) to improve her speaking. Those classes helped, but she only took them for a few months. She realized she needed to start working and making money and wouldn’t have enough free time to do both. “Because my goal here is to go to work and earn money to support my family in Vietnam,” she said. Around this time, she also became pregnant with her son.

She started working as a quality control inspector at a manufacturing company in town, where her husband also worked. She said she could handle this job because most of her co-workers spoke Vietnamese. In some ways, she felt a slice of home when working around people who spoke her native language.

However, Tran had always wanted to return to school full-time, and it wasn’t until the COVID-19 pandemic that she finally had the opportunity to do so. When the lockdown began, she was laid off from her job at Medtronic, a medical technology manufacturer. Instead of dwelling on this, she viewed it as an opportunity to enroll in SBCC’s Adult High School and GED program. “I lost the job,” she said. “But it gave me some money to support me for at least a couple of years.”

Tran said that taking classes online during COVID allowed her to carve out time on her terms. “I can learn at my own pace. Anytime, anywhere.” Although she was admittedly overwhelmed at first, she maintained a positive mindset. Whenever she felt stressed, her professors would remind her to take everything one step at a time, to do the program “little by little,” and eventually, she would finish.

Tran was unsure of her career path, but SBCC’s counselors helped her find her way. They introduced her to the medical assistant program and informed her that it was free. Despite the program’s accessibility, Tran wasn’t entirely convinced. She didn’t think she could pursue a career in the medical field with no background in it. “I don’t think I can handle that,” she told the counselor.

Tran was also working on the paperwork to bring her sister to the United States and felt slightly overwhelmed. She went back and forth with the counselor over many visits until she finally convinced her to give it a shot. “She said, ‘Let’s try it this time. I think you can make it,’” Tran recalled.

So she did, and just when she was close to finishing the program, another obstacle hit: Her husband was diagnosed with lung cancer. “I didn’t want to give up,” Tran recalled. But she also knew she had to be there for her husband.

Despite this setback, she applied the skills she had gained to care for her husband and communicate effectively with his doctors. “I learned from [the] medical assistant program to help my husband, support him at home.” Doctors were able to remove her husband’s tumor, and he was cancer-free.

Even after finishing the program, Tran still wasn’t convinced it was the right path for her. She even enrolled in the Medical Billing and Coding Program at UCLA, hoping it would appeal to her. Ultimately, though, she found her true calling as a medical assistant.

She secured a job at Sansum Clinic two years ago and has been there ever since. Despite her significant progress in English, Tran still experiences moments of self-doubt. However, her patients quickly help her drop the negative talk. “I met a lot of nice patients, and they keep telling me everything is fine,” she recalled. “And I learned to smile. I learned to laugh with my mistakes and learn to make a joke over my weakness.”

Tran credits the teachers and counselors at SBCC with giving her the confidence to believe in herself and pursue the medical assistant program, even when she didn’t think she could. “Everybody can make it,” one professor repeatedly reminded her.

“SBCC saved my life, to be honest,” Tran said.

This article was paid for by Santa Barbara City College. For more information on Santa Barbara City College and the hundreds of programs they offer, visit sbcc.edu or (805) 965-0581. If you are an SBCC alumni please join SBCC Alumni Connect at sbccfoundation.org/alumni.