Husky 100

August 17, 2020

Where are they Now: Angel Chen

Being a Husky 100 as an international student from China meant so much to me and my community. There were only three Chinese students named as the Husky 100 in my cohort in 2018. I was really honored and excited when reading the email from the Husky 100 committee, starting with the word, “Congratulation!” I sincerely appreciated this opportunity to learn from the other 99 amazing huskies during the induction ceremony, joined the LinkedIn Husky 100 connection group, and even kept in touch with many fellow Husky 100 peers. Husky 100 is a crucial recognition for my international students community – this is an award not specifying US citizenship only, green-card holder only, Seattle campus only, or major only. It means, it was the first time that we (international students) are being fully included, we can join the selection process, we can make impacts, our stories matter, and our voice can be heard. There is always a saying, sometimes we do get invite[d] to a ball, but not to dance. But this program really tells a different story. It inspires a lot of us to contribute in any way we can.

I found my life-time mentor from the 2017 Husky 100 cohort, and then became a mentor for a 2019 Husky 100. Kuang Sheng, a Husky 100 in 2017, whom I met when I started thinking about submitting an application for Husky 100. I found his name through the Husky 100 website and [I was] bold enough to ask for a coffee chat. Kuang was really friendly and approachable, willing to help me through this process and even offer[ed] to be my mentor. We discussed the application timeline, things to prepare, essay to think about, ways to better articular the UW stories. For all the boundless opportunities that UW ever offered, so many events that we joined or hosted, how do we show all of them in one single story? How to be concise, logical, and authentic? This part was challenging, especially for us, when English is our second language. Kuang reviewed my essay twice and gave a lot of constructive feedback,. I was so grateful to meet him and this contributed heavily to my success in winning Husky 100 in 2018. Therefore, after receiving this honor, I have decided to pass on this mentorship from Kuang to another potential Husky 100 in 2019. Later in my senior year at UW, I met Justin Wang when we participated in the same blood drive volunteering activity, who now is a Husky 100 in 2019. I noticed that he has been very passionate about community services and cares a lot about the Chinese community, so I encouraged him applying this award, and showed him my struggles and lessons learned from my application period. I was so glad that he also earned this recognition, he deserved it.

Being inspired by the Husky 100 award, I continue flexing the “capacity for leadership” muscle in my professional career in EY Seattle. After [I] graduated from UW in December 2018, I joined EY Seattle in February 2019. On October 4, I led a team of 35 EY professionals participating in our annual volunteering event, called “EY Connect Day”, hosted a special “Olympics” activities for children with disability. We taught basketball, flag football, and soccer, and had a fun day exercising with them. Similar to my boundless UW experience, I have joined all opportunities EY ever offered, committed to help out on many campus recruiting events, volunteer to be a mentor for UWAA (University of Washington Alumni Association) at the Husky@Work program, and provide guidance on mock interviews with Foster MSIS program’s (Master of Science in Information System) students. This has been a very rewarding journey (both at UW and EY) and hope to give back in any way I can.