Conservation Impacts on the Global Scale

I thought Michael did an excellent job of presenting the premise and intentions of his Grant Proposal. The premise is that Michael proposed to a board of individuals affiliated with Poly a proposal for funding for a project relating to an organization he works closely with: Reading Partners. He successfully gained funding for the purchase of books that aim to highlight underrepresented groups in children's books. I cannot state how important this is to kids growing up today. As an Asian American, I seldom saw representation in literature growing up. Seeing someone that looks and has a similar background to you when it comes to children's books is incredibly meaningful for young people and I'm glad that Michael's found success with his project. His knowledge and deep connections with Reading Partners are notable and impressive and I think he was able to explain effectively to the virtual audience why his proposal was worth funding. In addition, he was able to shift to ...

What did you learn from GIP and the Global Scholars Program this year? Being a Global Scholar was a very enriching experience. I would say that I most directly learned how to conduct myself in large groups of people more effectively through moderating the panel with Joe Wong and Clement Cid, as well as how to set up an interview. The unexpected transition to the online interview format also pushed me to learn how to edit video. Through the class, I was able to hear the perspectives of other Global Scholars and attend numerous presentations given by experts on development economics, sustainability, and human rights issues. What is the legacy you and your fellow cohort members will be leaving when you graduate? Something I'm happy about is that the video recording of my interview with Dr. Cid will be accessible online. This means it will have continued impact long after the event's actual occurrence and hopefully reach more people outside the Poly community than if I w...

As of April 13th, I've finished my Capstone Project. The final form that the project was in was an online panel, but it went through a lot of changes in the process. I'll detail my process here. I started thinking about my Capstone Project in the second half of my junior year. At that point, I had no connections to organizations or concrete ideas about what the project would look like, and I was worried. I decided to focus on something related to my scientific interests, but the labs that I had worked with in the past were related to evolutionary and developmental biology and thus not well suited for a discussion of global health issues, a topic that I was interested in. I thought since Polytechnic is so close to Caltech, I might as well look into labs that tackle issues in global health and sustainability. After asking around, I was able to hone in on the Resnick Sustainability Institute, which supports labs doing research towards environmental sustainability. Talkin...

During spring break, I was able to read Jean Hatzfeld's Machete Season, translated from the original French. I was waiting to read this book for a long time beforehand because I was interested in hearing perspectives on the Rwandan genocide, one of the bloodiest events in recent years. The Rwandan genocide and Machete Season struck me for how disturbing it was. Examining the other book I had recently read, The Rape of Nanking, which discussed another genocide, led me to see how the Rwandan genocide and Machete Season are distinct. Machete Season is a book written from the perspective of those that were involved in the killings, which is quite unusual for this kind of book. (I believe this to be so due to the incentives that killers who are now imprisoned see for their stories to be published and how recent the tragedy was.) The Rape of Nanking mostly highlights survivor accounts of the tragedy, while Machete Season explores the experiences of killers, their motives, and their goa...

In light of the recent shutdown of Polytechnic School as a result of measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19, I have started "Zhou Enlai, the Last Perfect Revolutionary." The content of the book is quite interesting, as it talks about Zhou Enlai, the Chinese Premier famous for his de-escalation of China/US tensions during the "Ping Pong Diplomacy" of the 70s and part in the orchestration of Richard Nixon's historic visit to China. While I will have much more to talk about down the line, I'm particularly struck by how Zhou Enlai deliberately stayed out of the spotlight and supported Mao Zedong years in advance on topics he would address. He shrewdly stayed clear of purges that happened to the upper echelons of China's communist party and ultimately went down as a figure with mixed impact. On one hand, he was able to consistently support Mao and tone down his policies so that they would not have as much harmful impact to China, but without him, Mao'...

I really enjoyed hearing the AFS students' perspectives on America and willingness to share their stories. We had three panelists come from Bulgaria, Germany, and Chile, who discussed varied aspects of their lives in America and their home countries. Jacqueline and Aaron, both members of the Global Scholars cohort, asked questions concerning food, customs, culture, and education. I was surprised at how much the schooling system varied and by the experiences with host families that each panelist faced. Carlos, the student from Chile, described how he had to move host families 6 or 7 times, and move schools multiple times in a year, which must have been extremely difficult in a new country. Maya, the Bulgarian student, also had to make some adjustments in her living, as she was an only child thrust into a large host family. Not only did they have to adjust to the living areas, they would also have to shift how they handle education and culture, as evidenced by questions concerning cu...

I was able to finish Welcome to the NHK, a show adapted from Tatsuhiko Takimoto's original manga. This is a famously depressing show, one that touches on the hikikomori phenomenon in Japan. Hikikomori are people who isolate themselves from social contact and generally seek confinement within their homes or apartments for extended periods of time, ranging from months to years. The protagonist of the show, Tatsuhiro Sato, is a hikikomori whose depiction is from the start negative. He's first presented in his room, which is strewn with clothes, empty bottles, alcohol, and magazines. We find out that his condition is a result of his crippling fear of being perceived as lesser by others and that he goes to comical lengths to show others that he is either not a hikikomori or that he does not need help. The story ultimately surrounds Sato and how that mentality shifts over time. Perhaps one of the most unique aspects of the story is how it addresses being an otaku so unappealingly. ...

Michael SanClements's presentation on the prevalence of plastic and the difficulty of dealing with its environmental impacts was deeply engaging and informative. I was particularly surprised by the way in which SanClements decided to approach the presentation: he gave a lot of historical background on the creation of plastic and its usage to frame his discussion around the lack of utility plastic serves in many cases. He touched on such topics as Tupperware parties and the creation of plastic as a replacement for pool balls to ultimately argue why one-time use plastic has little use in real life. I believe that this event engaged the audience more than any other I've seen through the GIP program: Michael, a Global Scholar, led off the discussion with a question but afterwards, a slew of people had their points to make and questions to ask. One memorable statement that was made by an audience member concerned the viability of single-use plastics. He brought up the fact that s...

Maddy did a great job with her organization of her panel last Wednesday, where she recruited three speakers to talk about their experiences as religious leaders in their communities and their ties to the Middle East. First and foremost, I would like to recognize Maddy for her adaptation to unpredictable conditions with the event. She had to manage the panel while two speakers were running late as a result to traffic and adapt her questions to the speakers' responses. The three speakers "represented" the three Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. They each discussed their relationship to religion and knowledge on the significance of Jerusalem in a nuanced and understanding manner. The event went wonderfully because of the decisions the speakers made. First and foremost, the Christian speaker set clear boundaries on the discussion and talked candidly about his faith. He explicitly stated that Christians had historically done wrong in the region, which afte...

*This article contains graphic descriptions of violence. This book made me reflect on what I had previously learned about the tragedy that occurred in Nanjing, China in 1937. I had never heard the event described as The Rape of Nanking before I read this book. In my family, it was always referred to as the "Nanjing Massacre."* The "Rape of Nanking" did better to describe the brutality of the event, which I had heard about growing up.  Both my parents are Chinese, from Anhui province. My mother never spoke much to me about the event itself, but she told me when I was younger about how gory and brutal it was. She and my father didn't live through the tragedy, but their older relatives escaped, and my mother described to me how they saw horrible sights, such as organs and viscera scattered across their escape route. As I got older, I would visit the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall in China and learned the extent to which Japanese soldiers killed and tortur...

For my Capstone Project, I have reached out to several scientists, including Jess Adkins, Michael Hoffmann, Clement Cid, Dianne Newman, and Neil Fromer, all of which work at the Resnick Institute of Sustainability at Caltech. I am planning a panel for scientists to discuss their work in sustainability, and so far, I will have Clement Cid, who works on waste treatment and sanitation presenting at Poly, though I might add one more panelist if it would improve the quality of the event. 

It was a pleasure to host Ben, a student from New Zealand this week. While I’ve hosted students from Nirayama High School in Japan for 1 day twice before, I have never hosted a student for a week, so this was definitely a new experience for me. Ben was great to talk to. He shares my interest in science but commented that New Zealand lacks some of the resources the US has in terms of learning science. I talked to him about some tips or ways to access scientific resources online and shared with him some books to look into, and I look forward to communicating with him more on scientific topics. Through our conversations, I also learned more about aspects of New Zealand education and culture. His knowledge on the wildlife was quite impressive and introduced me to some flightless birds I had previously not heard of. For the histories of New Zealand and the US, we drew connections between the founding documents of the two countries and the persecution of the native groups...

This was definitely a good week for Asian American representation in the Poly Community. Following Joe Wong’s comedic presentation, we had four Asian American speakers come present on how they got where they are today and their academic experiences courtesy of the AAA, or Asian Affinity Alliance. Even though every panelist was very successful in their own right, they all had rather nontraditional experiences in education, having switched from major to major and job to job. I found that the panelists had a lot to say about not only their career paths, but also, how their identities as Asian Americans affects their work and thought processes. For some, it was more apparent that they could weave their identity heavily into their interests and professions in the artistic world, and for others, the identity took a subtler role in their success in the form of upbringing or cultural expectations. 

My multivariable calculus class through Global Online Academy (GOA) has been going great so far. I’ve never taken a math, let alone any type of course online in such an environment, so this was a great learning experience for me. While the course material didn’t cover global issues as much, built in to the course were opportunities for making connections with other students, and through those opportunities, I was able to connect with people in different parts of the US, Indonesia, and Slovakia. It was great learning about what my students have been doing outside of school and what led them to pursue multivariable calculus, a course that many students don’t take until college. The answers I got varied based on the individual student interests, concerning students’ pure love for math and in other cases, a willingness to take math to other fields in science or economics. I think this has been and will continue to be a great experience for expanding my horizons, both mathematically and glo...

I can certainly say Joe Wong started the decade off with a bang, just like the illegal firecrackers he  joked about in his presentation.  Joe Wong, an incredible bilingual comedian and chemist by training came to speak to Polytechnic School this past Wednesday. Alex (a fellow global scholar) and I had the privilege of introducing Mr. Wong to Poly. I greatly enjoyed his content and could definitely see how it tied into my heritage as a Chinese American. While his content was laden with comedy, it definitely addressed some more serious issues such as the immigration process to the United States, racism, the traditional Chinese upbringing, and the one child policy. Mr. Wong is younger than my parents, yet he is an American immigrant just as they are, and studied science just like they did. I see how their experiences mirror his and can appreciate how he takes the pain of his past and presents it to the audience in a digestible manner, and his witty, i...