University of Pennsylvania — Entrepreneurship & Innovation
Explores how childhood pattern-building (connecting chopstick holders into trains) evolved into adult leadership—specifically learning to unite a fractured school community through vulnerability, trust, and empathetic connection during a competitive team field trip.
Personal Statement
How many chopstick holders should I connect to invent the world’s largest train?
Though a chopstick holder may seem like an ordinary object, to five-year-old-me it was an opportunity to create what I loved most – trains. I quickly borrowed my parents’ ‘Chinese Food Equipment’ and carefully connected chopstick holders with chopsticks to make one large train. Similarly, when I was 7, I filled the house floor with connected Thomas and Friends’ train tracks, forming a labyrinth my parents had to carefully tiptoe through. Growing older, my love for connections only grew with me, from connecting toys to connecting communities.
As team captain during my school’s annual field trip, I recognized my daunting responsibility to connect my school’s extremely fragmented factions, day-scholars and boarders, who avoid interaction due to selective cliques and minimal exposure to each other.
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