It’s difficult to say where education begins so I guess I will start off with daycare. When I was 4 or 5 (The age before kindergarten), my parents had to work long hours because they did not have an education. My parents came to America around 1988 and so they had only been in the country for two years. My brother was the first born in ’88 and became the first US citizen in our family. Because my family did not have much of an education, most of their time was spent working. My mom was a seamstress and my dad worked in a restaurant. Both of them dedicated long hours of their day into work and so I ended up going to a local daycare.

I feel that my daycare experience was different because I was the only Asian. Growing up in this African American/Hispanic community, I did not socially connect with any of the children. There initially was a language barrier but this was quickly overcome because my parents were not around to speak to me in Chinese. From TV and daycare, I grew up learning English as my dominant language but as I grew older another language barrier formed between my parents and me. Even to this day, I cannot carry on a conversation with them in either Chinese or English.

Not only was I racially different in my daycare, but I also lived in a dangerous community. When I began attending kindergarten in public school, the Bloods were an active gang in my neighborhood and it was dangerous to go outside. I remember my mom colored my DragonBallZ book bag to cover all of the red because she thought that it was safer. I was lucky enough to live only 2 blocks away from school and so I did not experience any of the gang violence firsthand.

In my first grade summer, I went to summers school with my brother. Usually summer school was for students who failed but for me, I went because my brother went. (He accidently mis-bubbled his state exam and because my parents were busy with work, I went with him.) Summer school was when I realized that there was a strong racial prejudice against Chinese. One day a friend had taught me the phrase “Ching chong ma ka hai ya.” I did not know what it meant because my parents didn’t teach me Chinese and I took my friend’s word that this phrase was some Chinese saying that meant hello. When I told my parents, they told me it was like a curse to Chinese people. (There really is no meaning to it)

In second grade, I was accepted into a Summer Program called “Summer on the Hill” held at the private school Horace Mann. This program was an enrichment program that educated students who came from disadvantaged public schools. With my acceptance into this program, my summers and weekends would be spent at Horace Mann learning new topics until 8th grade.

After graduating public school, I was accepted into a school called Maritime Academy. This school was a selective program that granted admission by only by lottery. My brother had recently been accepted 2 years earlier and he was part of the first graduating class. Maritime was an experimental school that started out small and us students were also guinea pigs like Jacquie. It modeled its classes like high school and we had to take 9 periods of classes along with afterschool activities. My favorite part about middle school was our senior trip to Disney World. I graduated Maritime as valedictorian to attend Bronx Science.

Bronx Science was a great experience for me. For the first time, I was not the only Asian in the school and I was able to connect to my own culture. Bronx Science was a school that nurtured learning and all of the teachers loved what they did. I feel that the education I got there was exceptional and it taught me how to love learning like how the teachers there loved teaching.

When it was time for me to apply to college, I like many of my friends wanted to attend an Ivy League school. Though I was denied from all of them, I decided that I would make the best of my choices and chose Macaulay Honors College. I decided that my own passion for learning would pave my future. Coming to Macaulay, however has provided many opportunities I did not expect. I am happy with my choice and feel that there are many more opportunities that Macaulay will offer for me.

My first year in Macaulay was one of my best learning experiences. After finding my way into a Bioinformatics Lab at Hunter, I learned many computer skills, and a lot about time management.  I learned that I had the opportunity to make choices on my own and felt that I could direct myself where I wanted to. I feel that learning how to push myself was my greatest lesson in my life.