Advocacy Chair – Asian Student Alliance

I joined the Asian Students Alliance during my freshman year and have remained active through different leadership positions. My time involved with ASA has been extremely meaningful – not only have I been able to become a part of the Pittsburgh Asian-American community, but I have also learned valuable leadership, organization, and team-building skills.

As Advocacy Chair, it was my job to ensure that all of our advocacy events related back to our advocacy theme of “Breaking the Model Minority.” Through this theme, I created weekly blogposts, monthly youtube videos, and facilitated advocacy workshops to increase the awareness of what the “model minority myth” means and how we can prevent the increase usage of the stereotypes that come along with it. In addition, this theme culminated to a “AAPI Advocacy Week,” a week-long event that was held during the spring semester of 2017.

President – Asian Student Alliance

When I finished my term as Advocacy Chair, I realized that I still wanted to help ASA reach its full potential. After being elected by ~100 peers and students, I was elected to serve as President for the 2017-2018 term. While being president, we were able to implement lasting changes that would benefit the Asian-American community for years to come. Changes such as an integrated way to pair freshmen and upperclassmen for our Big & Little program and a new organizational system for our committee program, which allowed underclassmen to get an insight look on being part of an executive board for one of the largest organizations on campus.

Vira I. Heinz Women in Global Leadership

One of the programs that I felt truly shaped my college experience was the Vira I. Heinz Women in Global Leadership Program. This program aims to develop and encourage a passion for life-long learning and civic engagement. Women from different Pennsylvania institutions are chosen to represent the school at two weekend-long intensive leadership development retreats, participate in an international experience, and finally create a Community Engagement Experience.

Through VIH, not only have I been able to develop as a young women through building my inter- and intra-personal skills, but I have also been able to connect with young, women leadership from multiple institutions, studying multiple different fields who are going through their own identity journey.