Duke marked a turning point in my life. As a young girl growing up in a small town in South Carolina, where I was one of only a few Asian Americans, I couldn’t imagine the possibilities. My parents knew very little about the education system in the U.S. They applied to one school from abroad each and came to America with a couple of suitcases and a few hundred dollars.
I applied to Duke on a whim, knowing my parents didn’t have the means to pay for a private school education. So when I won the Benjamin N. Duke scholarship, I was overjoyed.
Duke showed me possibilities I never thought were possible. I came in as a shy teen and left knowing I could be so much more. I was more than a student of engineering. I learned important life skills that I use to this day. I came in as a little fish in an impressive pond full of people who had seen so much more of the world. It took me a long time to realize that even though I was a timid student from a small-town school, with the right support and encouragement, I could be their equal.
Over the years, I have looked back on my time at Duke as a chrysalis. I blossomed because of the support of my professors and fellow students. I learned to learn and grew into someone I could not have imagined when I came to campus for the first time.