Whether it’s launching a global network of youth leaders or weaving words together to shape a poem, Academy freshman Sheila Wang is all about connection and collaboration. Here, Wang shares how her perspective shifted from traditional business to entrepreneurship and why the spatula is the ultimate kitchen tool. Read on...

Talk about your journey to the Academy. What were you looking for in an undergraduate program?  

I’ve always wanted to study business in university. When the college application season rolled in, I realized that I was more into entrepreneurship and innovation rather than traditional business fields like accounting or finance, and I didn’t want to limit myself to business studies only. So I searched particularly for more interdisciplinary programs that have the element of art or technology, two other fields that I had a deep interest in. When I found IYA, I immediately decided that it was the one I was looking for. 

What are you most looking forward to in the Academy? 

I look forward to connecting with Cohort 9 and other Academy students. In high school, we had different classmates for each class so there was a relatively low sense of class bonding. I cannot wait to go on trips with Cohort 9 (yes, we already talked about it in our group chat before even meeting each other in person!) and learn from every one of them.

What is your proudest achievement to date? 

Starting Cluborate Community, a nonprofit that aims to connect youth initiatives across the world to foster collaboration and communication between youth leaders. Although it’s only been a year since I founded it, I am proud to see our network expand to more than fifty organizations in six countries and cannot wait to see where it goes next. 

Describe one thing most people don’t know about you.

Poetry is my way to free my emotions, and those emotions in turn become my source of creativity. Expressing my feelings in words also helps me to make more sense of them by creating a valve that allows emotions to come and go. 

What is one thing a significant person in your life taught you that you’d like to share?

My parents taught me that as long as the motivation and passion are there, it is never too late to start. Seeing my mom finding her passion in traditional Chinese painting and honing her skills to a point that she could put her art in an art exhibition the last two years and my dad successfully starting a new venture completely unrelated to what he worked on before really inspires me and makes me believe in hard work and dedication.

What is one skill/thing that you learned during the COVID-19 pandemic?

If you could be any kitchen appliance, what would you be and why? 

A spatula. It mixes well with anything and helps different things to blend in. It's the tool that connects everything together. 

Anything that gives me a new perspective. It could be something as ordinary as a ray of sunshine or something completely out of the blue.

What do you consider the most impactful invention in history and why? 

Human language. With language, we can express ourselves, put names to different emotions we experience, and connect with people in the past, present, and future. 

Whether it’s launching a global network of youth leaders or weaving words together to shape a poem, Academy freshman Sheila Wang is all about connection and collaboration. Here, Wang shares how her perspective shifted from traditional business to entrepreneurship and why the spatula is the ultimate kitchen tool. Read on…

FRESH Encounters: Sheila Wang