In 1964, after getting high school diplomas I and II, she attended the first year of the politic-business college (Chính trị Kinh doanh), newly founded at University of Đà Lạt (300 km northeast Saigon).
[1] In June 1969, Hoàng T. T. returned to Viet Nam and three months later she started to work at the Geological Survey of Saigon, which depended on the Ministry of Economy of that time.
[2] Many small deposits, almost kaolin, were during longtime exploited for making porcelain or ceramic products, as well as bricks and roofing tiles.
With the help of a diffractometer, Hoàng T. T. analyzed about a hundred samples of clays from diverse origins: kaolin from alluvions of ancient Quaternary (Province of Bình Dương, Biên Hoà) ),[3] the clays of recent alluvions (different localities between Mekong and Đông Nai river), or from the weathering of granite, rhyolite and shale of Đà Lạt area (Province of Lâm Đồng).
[4] Of volcano-lakeside origin, this clay was reported but not analyzed by Edmond Saurin[5] In 1974, she discovered the same bentonite at Bảo Lộc area (Province of Lâm Đồng)(mixed with fragments of brown coal) and early 1975 at Tuy Hoà area (Province of Khánh Hòa).
In early May 1979, to seize a place on a boat the departure of which was imminent, with the agreement of her mother, she left her family with a tiny bag.
A month and half later, all boat people were moved to another camp at Mersing where three thousands or so refugees overcrowded into an ancient football field.
With surprise, she accepted this offer though she hoped inside her to return to Canada or to rejoin her brothers in the United States.
31 August 1979, she landed on Paris with flip flops, her bag and a 20 US dollar banknote offered by a Malay officer.
France and Canada did not mutually recognize each other’s diploma (until Dominique de Villepin (French prime minister 2005–2007) signed an agreement with the Canadian government), this was not followed by large French companies, so Hoàng T. T. was engaged as engineer taking function of documentary geologist to prepare a weekly review of specialized press in the Survey of Diversification; she later became analyst of metal market for the Survey of Economic Study, and finally chargée de mission of the Direction of Financial Strategy and Economic Study.
From the beginning of her retirement, she devoted her time to the research in cooperation with her former director of thesis, Dr Henri Fontaine and some French and Thaï geologists.