This paper describes and presents the results of an exploratory study of six Vietnamese American students who attended an English-as-a-Second-Language class during their first year of study at Drexel University in Pennsylvania. The paper addresses the issue of the growing variety of cultures represented in today's college students by examining what these six Vietnamese students' experiences are, in and out of the classroom. Descriptions of the freshman English program at Drexel University, the fall semester composition course, and the classes that were observed in the study are provided. Among the study's findings are the following: (1) formal education is viewed as an avenue to middle-class occupational status; (2) the parents of these students reject the goal of total assimilation into American culture and guard against these pressures; (3) strained family relationships occur due to different rates of acculturation by family members; (4) there appears to have been a conscious or unconscious rejection of their own culture and language to some extent as the students try to "fit in;" and (5) there is a need to bond together with those of their own kind as security from the pressures imposed by the different cultural structures. Conclusions and recommendations are provided. Contains a 6-item bibliography and 12 notes. (GLR)