Vietnamese engineering student Nguyen Trong Nghia has been named South Australia's International Student of the Year by StudyAdelaide, an official government website for international students studying in South Australia.

Nghia is currently in the third year of a Bachelor of Engineering degree (Electrical and Electronic) at the University of Adelaide in South Australia.

Nghia pipped six other category winners to the prestigious prize, seeing off rivals from Hong Kong, Canada, Malaysia and Viet Nam in the areas of academia, community engagement, the arts and sports.

This follows his win in the academic undergraduate category last year, suggesting the young Vietnamese has a dazzling career ahead of him.

The judging panel were impressed by Nghia's outstanding grade point average of 6.95 out of 7 and his involvement with both the Australian and Vietnamese communities through a range of university clubs and societies.

Originally from a city in Viet Nam's Tay Nguyen (Central Highland) Dak Lak Province, Nghia has always been a high achiever. He achieved a perfect 30/30 for his university entrance examination, excelled during his first year of university in HCM City and came to Australia on a scholarship from the Vietnamese Government.

The son of a maths teacher's almost flawless academic record in Adelaide includes high distinctions for all eight subjects studied in the past two semesters. He has received awards from the School of Engineering and his university for academic achievement.

Nghia says the lecturers in Adelaide are ‘very supportive and friendly,' while he likes the fact there are many opportunities to put his theory sessions into practice.

Another of Nghia's numerous achievements was winning a summer research scholarship. He says scholarship recipients have receive access to a welath of resources including scientific papers, licensed software, high speed computers and technical instruments.

Nghia's main area of interest is electromagnetism and he has won two local scholarships to support projects in this area. He would eventually like to become a researcher in this field and work in a technological university back in Viet Nam.

Fellow Vietnamese student Pham Ngan also won the Academic Achievement – Schools category. Ngan studies at Adelaide's Norwood Morialta High School.