I value joy, excellence, efficiency, diligence, and gratitude.

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Joy to me means I love what I do, and I do what I love. I find joy in studying. Curiosity drives me to know more about Mathematics and Economics,  and how the world works. I enjoy seeing economic theories that are expressed rigorously by mathematical theorems and computations. When doing proofs in my math class, I am always amazed and appreciate the beauty of mathematics.

 

Excellence from my perspective is that I have high standard for myself: I strive to be the best of my class. I have maintained a 3.96 GPA through my four years of college. I am focused and driven towards what I am studying so that I have never missed any office hour that my professors ever offer. I discuss what is above and beyond the regular coursework with them and I work hard for assignments and midterms. Over these years, I have developed a unique study method: frequently revisit the concepts and let them sink in, by making a “brain map” during weekends to sort out relationship between various chapters, and always be proactive to raise questions.

 

What is more, I believe in Efficiency. I have a businesslike schedule: I know exactly what I should do for every second of my life because I plan ahead already. In most interviews that I had, the classical question is: “how do you solve time conflicts?” I can answer with utter confidence, focus on one things only, make a list to prioritize what matters the most at the moment. Most importantly, do what you say and say what you do, and be proactive.

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I learnt to study diligently in UW. People take pictures under the cherry trees during cherry blossom. However, I do not. I learn math and work on my probability assignment with my math study buddies in the Quad. I reckon that hard work would eventually pay off.

 

Lastly, I am grateful for all my UW experiences, one of the highlight is being a First-year Interest Group leader, the Transfer FIG leader, when I enlarge my capacity of being a peer instructor. I understand what is to lead from within, to put the needs of my students ahead of my own. I keep forwarding emails that are related to career opportunity or campus involvement to my students, even the FIG course has ended in the Fall. I appreciate all my students, they helped me grow into a better student leader. 

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My view of leadership evolves during this quarter when participating in my mentor-mentee meetings with the Husky Leadership Initiative. I used to believe that leadership was only for great leaders. Now I understand that it is a complex concept that consists of various of competencies, which we can all practice and improve as followers or team players.

From my perspective, leadership means a clear vision of why I do what I do, and a sequence of feasible missions of what I will do. My leadership philosophy is to learn from within, follow my heart and take actions. I would like to create an inclusive community for my international students and transfer students, and share my passion of helping others to everyone that I met. There are a few principles of leadership to me: first of all, you must be genuine, be true to yourself and everyone, try doing something that you can find joy in; secondly, leadership is about motivation and inspiration, not only you are contributing your own power, but also empowering others to do meaningful things. It is always a rewarding experience when I lead, working with like-minded peers and earning a sense of achievement. Lastly, start practicing leadership as a team player. One of my cohorts in the Husky Leadership Initiative said, "Everyone is a leader in some aspects of their life; everyone is also a follower . in other aspects of their life. " I am good at being a follower, to lead as a follower and contribute my personal strengths. “You can’t win the chess with sixteen kings.” I do not mind being a follower because I don’t know what would happen if the world is left with all leaders, then who will be in the team?

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My “WHY”

 

“Why do you do what you do?” I came across this question the first time in my transfer application to University of North Carolina. Frankly, most people do not know the reasons of behind their behaviors, and I have always felt like I might be one of them. I do not have a really clear goal of my life and I am open to many opportunities, exploring various options. So my “why” is to live in the moment, and study as hard as I can.

I dream to be a quantitative analyst, which I can apply what I have learnt in Economics and Mathematics. Thus I have applied to a few graduate school in the east coast, and see if this would be something that I enjoy doing. (Just like my Amazon mentor said, knowing what you like, or knowing what you don’t like, are equally important.)

At the same time, I am also applying for jobs and internship related to marketing and student educational advancement, which is similar to what I am doing right now, student event programming and problem solving. I will be an intern in the Department of University Advancement at University of Washington in the summer of 2018, and I am excited about this coming adventure.

 

Future Goals

 

I envision to keep maintaining my leadership practice in the future by the followings:

1. Working as the president of Young Leaders Program until June of 2018 and hopefully I can make an influence on more international students, fostering their leaderships.

2. Continuing doing what I am doing right now, utilizing more UW resources and learning more skills to prepare me for job market. For the Spring quarter of 2018, I am joining a math research course, WXML (Washington Experimental Mathematics Laboratory), about combinatorics and game theory application in rock placement; as well as my first programming class, data programming in python! I would like to learn as much as I can and transform myself into a more competent people, who can contribute more to the world.

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