About Me
Learning Statement
As my last year of undergraduate education comes to an end, I am overwhelmed by how bittersweet everything feels. I certainly did not expect to be taking my final UW quarter from my parent’s house in Sammamish, following a last-minute decision to move back in during the Covid-19 quarantine. Inevitably, these weeks spent at home have brought about a lot of reflection and longing. I long for the life that I built in Seattle for four years; my friends, my campus, my community. It feels so surreal knowing that my college experience will only be a memory from now on. It’s hard to accept that all the people I got to know throughout this journey are now spread across the country, and no one knows when we will see each other next.
No, this is not how I thought my last year at UW would end, but in a way it encapsulates one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned during my college years: life is unpredictable, wild, and you can’t take one second for granted. When I first started at the University of Washington, I had a set notion of what it meant to be successful, and I pursued that idealized version of success with tunnel vision. More than anything, I wanted to prove that I was enough—smart enough, tough enough, good enough. I felt like I had to charge forwards and check all of the right boxes in order to be successful, as if good scores and a packed resume would automatically lead me to happiness. As I pursued increasingly unrealistic academic and personal expectations, I lost touch of many other aspects of my life. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the greatest loss was my sense of self. While I was moving at a hundred miles per hour towards my vision of success, I lost sight of the person I wanted to become.
My junior year was a major turning point, starting with a truly eye-opening study abroad experience. I traveled to Peru to learn about biodiversity, conservation, and sustainability in the Amazon rainforest, and the trip started a chain-reaction that completely changed my outlook on life, not all at once but slowly over the following months. This trip pushed me to reexamine my interactions with the world around me, but it also forced me to reevaluate my personal goals and values. It was the catalyst that drove me to start redefining success for myself. Shortly after the trip, I had to navigate a period of personal hardship that flipped my world upside down, but in the aftermath, I was finally able to look inward and figure out what was truly important in my life. With the help of some incredible mentors, professors, friends, and peers, I pieced together a new understanding of what it means to be successful and built the foundations of a new sense of identity.
I used to think that my academic accomplishments defined me, but I’ve come to realize that hardly any of my proudest moments came from inside of a classroom. I am proud of the moments in which I rose up to meet challenges instead of shying away. I am proud of learning how to trust my intuition, take care of myself, and stand up for myself. When I look back, it’s the road trips, the late nights with friends, the weekends with my family that put the biggest grin on my face. I am filled with joy when I think of the places I have been, from the peaks of mountains to the heart of the Amazon rainforest. Of course, there were countless classroom moments that helped shape me as a person; Writing a family autobiography, leading a freshman orientation course as a Peer Educator, learning how to insert an electrode into a single neuron, to name a few. But I’ve learned that the source of pride is in the process of doing; the experience of struggling and overcoming, the feeling of being uncertain, nervous, or afraid, and then pushing through it. As I move forward, I am more determined than ever to live fully, meaningfully, and with constant gratitude.
The past four years have been an absolute whirlwind of highs and lows, and through all of it, I have learned so much about who I am and the life I want to live. This portfolio serves as a reflection of a few defining moments, but it can only scratch the surface of the people and experiences that have made me who I am today.
No, this is not how I thought my last year at UW would end, but in a way it encapsulates one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned during my college years: life is unpredictable, wild, and you can’t take one second for granted. When I first started at the University of Washington, I had a set notion of what it meant to be successful, and I pursued that idealized version of success with tunnel vision. More than anything, I wanted to prove that I was enough—smart enough, tough enough, good enough. I felt like I had to charge forwards and check all of the right boxes in order to be successful, as if good scores and a packed resume would automatically lead me to happiness. As I pursued increasingly unrealistic academic and personal expectations, I lost touch of many other aspects of my life. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the greatest loss was my sense of self. While I was moving at a hundred miles per hour towards my vision of success, I lost sight of the person I wanted to become.
My junior year was a major turning point, starting with a truly eye-opening study abroad experience. I traveled to Peru to learn about biodiversity, conservation, and sustainability in the Amazon rainforest, and the trip started a chain-reaction that completely changed my outlook on life, not all at once but slowly over the following months. This trip pushed me to reexamine my interactions with the world around me, but it also forced me to reevaluate my personal goals and values. It was the catalyst that drove me to start redefining success for myself. Shortly after the trip, I had to navigate a period of personal hardship that flipped my world upside down, but in the aftermath, I was finally able to look inward and figure out what was truly important in my life. With the help of some incredible mentors, professors, friends, and peers, I pieced together a new understanding of what it means to be successful and built the foundations of a new sense of identity.
I used to think that my academic accomplishments defined me, but I’ve come to realize that hardly any of my proudest moments came from inside of a classroom. I am proud of the moments in which I rose up to meet challenges instead of shying away. I am proud of learning how to trust my intuition, take care of myself, and stand up for myself. When I look back, it’s the road trips, the late nights with friends, the weekends with my family that put the biggest grin on my face. I am filled with joy when I think of the places I have been, from the peaks of mountains to the heart of the Amazon rainforest. Of course, there were countless classroom moments that helped shape me as a person; Writing a family autobiography, leading a freshman orientation course as a Peer Educator, learning how to insert an electrode into a single neuron, to name a few. But I’ve learned that the source of pride is in the process of doing; the experience of struggling and overcoming, the feeling of being uncertain, nervous, or afraid, and then pushing through it. As I move forward, I am more determined than ever to live fully, meaningfully, and with constant gratitude.
The past four years have been an absolute whirlwind of highs and lows, and through all of it, I have learned so much about who I am and the life I want to live. This portfolio serves as a reflection of a few defining moments, but it can only scratch the surface of the people and experiences that have made me who I am today.