What if I told you Flint Lockwood’s “Spray-On Shoes” in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs were replicated by scientists into a real-life, reusable “Spray-on Clothes”? I wouldn’t expect anyone to know unless they’d read the 2010 Edition of Ripley’s Believe-It-or-Not—a recurring dictionary of mind-boggling discoveries.

When I strolled into the 4th-grade book fair clutching a $20 bill, endless stacks of Texas Bluebonnet novels I had read through in class pointed me to something new. That’s when I saw it–A huge purple hardcover with a glossy silver finish and 3D cover-art; the words “ENTER IF YOU DARE!” bursting from the front. $17.99. Perfect.

The constant amidst the ever-changing pages in a Ripley’s hardcover is that every page is loaded with outlandish facts and astonishing images, usually in small blocks. To me, the ROI on a Ripley’s book was unbeatable because they legitimately took me months to finish. This wasn’t because I’m a slow reader, but rather because each small paragraph of text was also hours spent on a Wikipedia surf jumping through blue hyperlinks and bookmarking articles. For some reason, a wacky detail about Queen Elizabeth’s shoes also saw me tracing back the entire British monarchy.

In hindsight, Ripley’s cultivated what I now understand as my overarching sense of intellectual curiosity. More than anything, this curiosity has been my pathway into developing a fluid personality and escaping from a static human experience. I fondly remember my short-lived obsessions with Duolingo in the weeks leading up to any and every trip outside the states. While I was never really able to hold a conversation, being able to greet someone in a new way was a valuable enough souvenir that I could always count on.

This intellectual curiosity and fluidity manifested in a variety of ways. Most weekends in high school, I left my fate in the hands of a stranger in the back of a classroom as I competed in debate tournaments. However, the true thrill for me came in the form of a vast breadth of researching policymaking, critical literature, dense philosophical theories, and works by Delueze and Guattari and Weheliye that would take me weeks and weeks to break down. While many debaters specialized in certain arguments, I could never stop jumping around from one interesting concept to the next. For me, even the concept of culture became fluid. I had the most fun of my life in senior year as the only Chinese kid wearing a kurta after I had been invited to a puja and since then have found an inexplicable joy in binging the wildly interesting plots of 3-hour Bollywood movies.

I’ve always believed that fulfillment is a question of perspective and I think that my fulfillment lies in remaining an open book; open to taking risks, open to trying new things, open to always digging deeper. In my opinion, being a Forty Acres Scholar means a once in a lifetime opportunity to experience the depth of the world around me without any bounds as I fill in more and more pages in my story.

Major:
Business Honors

Honors Program:
Canfield Business Honors Program

Other Academic Interests:
Management Information Systems, Pre-Law

What drew you to the Forty Acres Scholars Program?
I still can’t shake off or replicate the unique thrill that I get when I walk out of an airport terminal into a new place. When I found out FASP not only provided a tight network and amazing educational funding, but also an opportunity to explore the world as part of my college pathway, I was immediately locked-in to the program. I think the emphasis on taking time to study abroad and explore in a variety of ways points to the ultimate goal of the program: providing not only the best educational experience, but the best worldly experience. Every step of the program is crafted in a way to support my success. FASP means a tight-knit cohort that provides the necessary comfort that a person needs when they transition into UT’s huge campus, but also a group of intellectually driven people that I draw inspiration from. Last but not least, it means unique guidance and connections that I believe will be integral in realizing and fulfilling all my future goals in my own career pathway.

What makes your scholar cohort unique?
From our first real meeting at the Freshman Scholar Retreat, I found myself clicking with every single person in my cohort in a unique way and I also saw the same phenomenon happen with everyone else in the cohort. I think the biggest aspect that separates our cohort is that we're all on the same page in terms of bridging the group out into new, exciting experiences that haven't been laid out yet. For example, I am super confident that our cohort will be the one to start the FASP intramural volleyball team. It almost seemed like there wasn't the usual awkward phase that comes with meeting new people, and instead our cohort just meshed well and agreed to collectively think outside the box in terms of the fun memories we hope to make and the social impact we hope to create.