Empowerly

Student profile

Describe an example of your leadership experience in which you have positively influenced others, helped resolve disputes or contributed to group efforts over time.  

“Could everyone lie down in a circle with your head on the inside?” 

This was my third time on the annual student government retreat, but my first time ever leading an activity.  I turned out the lights and asked everyone to close their eyes. After choosing a group to stand in the center of the circle, I explained I wanted them to touch those on the shoulder who they felt embodied the prompt I said out loud. 

“Touch someone who inspires you.”

The word “leadership” often causes certain ideas to come to mind. People think of the prestige, the title, and the accomplishments. However, I have found that the most important aspect of it is not the projects or the results: it’s the connection you have with those you are serving. 

Planning documents are essential, yes, but so are empathy and humanity. This year, I wanted to make sure everyone was fully aware of the immense role they played in other people’s lives. 

“Touch someone who challenges you.”

I credit my successes to the fact that my leadership style is not something that is static. It continuously flows and changes depending on what my peers need in the moment. By being the last to leave any spirit week practice, and the first to listen to their concerns, I constantly show them I care. 

“Touch someone you love.”

After everyone had rotated through the center, I ended the activity. I heard a boy behind me ask if I ever got to be tapped, since I had spent the entire time giving directions. 

“Nah,” I answered.

A series of taps on my back ensued. “Thanks for everything,” he said.

Once you learn to tune into the personal side of leadership, something funny happens. In the process of lifting up and educating the people around you, they always end up teaching you something back. Seeing how my classmates’ eyes light up when I’m able to help them achieve their goals inspires me. They remind me to never settle, and always chase improvement.

I playfully pushed him.

“The feeling’s mutual,” I said, and laughed. 

Describe the most significant challenge you have faced and the steps you have taken to overcome this challenge. How has this challenge affected your academic achievement?

Reaching in the gift bag I had just received for my 17th birthday, I felt my hands close around a small box. I knew exactly what it was. As I pulled it out, the bright chromosome design caught my eye: a DNA test.

I was adopted as a baby from China. Although I barely thought about it when I was younger, once I grew older my adoption began to bother me.

There are the little things. I will never look like my parents or have a complete medical history to tell my doctor.

And then there are the bigger things, like being unable to write about my birth story for theology class, or choreograph a phrase about my cultural background for honors dance. There’s an emptiness inside that says, “You don’t have a place.” 

Accepting being an Unknown has been one of the most difficult challenges I’ve had. 

The DNA test told me initially that I was 54% Chinese, 46% Filipino. 

I was thrilled when I finally got the results and told everyone I knew. But 2 months later, I received a message stating that my results had been changed.

71% Chinese, 29% Vietnamese.

The new results hit me hard. They were a direct message that I will likely never know where I “really” came from. It took a few days to come to terms with the fact that there was simply nothing more I could do - I was not going to get the answers I wanted. By finally admitting that the DNA test couldn’t solve my insecurities around my birth, I was able to see the results as more of a release. I needed to be the one to step up and stop holding myself back.

This compelled me to immerse myself fully within my passions. I learned how to focus on where I wanted to go, instead of where I had already been. 

I still haven’t told anyone about the change in the test results. I don't need to. Although my genetics will always be a part of me, they do not define who I am.

I do. 

Every person has a creative side, and it can be expressed in many ways: problem solving, original and innovative thinking, and artistically, to name a few. Describe how you express your creative side.  

The first decoration you see here is human skulls.

Welcome to Studio V SF. It’s a garage-turned-dance studio, and home to my competition team, Young Skull Club. Although we aim to be well rounded in all styles of hip hop, the most valuable thing I’ve learned is not how to memorize steps. It’s how to let go. 

When I started on YSC, I had no prior hip hop experience. Low self confidence in my dance ability caused me to try to be seen as little as possible. However, we did one exercise every practice in which it was impossible to hide: freestyle circles. During this drill, everyone stands in one big circle, and a song is played. On your turn, you go into the middle of the circle and dance. There’s no choreography and it’s completely on you to do whatever you want. The concept itself was simple, but scared me to death. 

My first few circles were rough. I was completely in my head and worried about impressing others. It took months of failed freestyles and difficult practices until my hip hop skills, and confidence, slowly began to grow. I started to feel more comfortable within the space and within myself, allowing me to let go of the fear of judgement when I danced. Suddenly, the meaning of the freestyle circle changed completely for me. It was like a weight was lifted off. For the first time, I realized that no one else had to understand what I did in the circle. The ideas and emotions I expressed only had to make sense to me.

I’ve now grown to love freestyle. It’s one of the only places where I know I can be completely, and unapologetically, myself. It’s my place to take risks, explore the continuously swirling thoughts in my head, and lose myself in the music. My movement will always be an embodiment of my own creative spirit. 

Studio V SF is by far my favorite place to train. The hours I’ve spent there have shaped me into more than just a dancer - I’m an artist as well. 

Think about an academic subject that inspires you. Describe how you have furthered this interest inside and/or outside of the classroom. 

An Asian kid growing up in [city], surrounded by startups and raised by two chemists, it would probably make sense if I said I always felt a natural affinity to the sciences. 

But remember, that’s just a stereotype.

The truth is, I never found science classes particularly interesting, but rather, based in memorization. As someone who is constantly curious, this form of learning never satisfied me. I wanted to know everything about how and why things worked, something that terms and formulas on their own couldn’t express. 

I’m not quite sure what initially drew me to AP Physics, but it had always stood out to me as being “different”. Perhaps because it was so deeply rooted in conceptual thinking. After only a few days in the course, I knew it was the perfect match for me. I loved how every test, project, and lab was completely based upon your ability to actually use what was taught. That’s not to say that figuring out how to build a trebuchet from scratch wasn’t still a struggle. It was. However, this type of hands-on education allowed me to discover how to extend my knowledge far beyond the classroom walls. That application, to me, is what separates real learning from simple recall. 

I look at my surroundings with a new appreciation now. My friends may roll their eyes when I point out the reasons for inertia, or excitedly explain the tides through Newton’s Universal Law of Gravitation, but it doesn’t phase me. In explaining the everyday phenomenons around me, I gain a better understanding of the world itself.

Although I don’t plan on pursuing a career in physics in the future, the critical thinking skills I’ve developed will always remain an integral part of my life. Physics has helped me to become more inquisitive and open-minded, inspiring me to continue challenging myself academically. It’s even shifted my perspective on science completely. No longer do I see science as simply a jumble of facts. I’ve found it to be a transcendent form of language, used to describe the beauty of creation itself.