“I needed one more elective to take, and so I messaged a good friend of mine and hit him up about all his courses to see what he was taking. A lot of them sounded just awful and really not interesting whatsoever, like philosophy of the law—I was like, not down for that. *Laughs* I saw that he was taking abnormal psychology, so I signed up… In the first class, I remember this guy asking a very show-offy question, and so the prof goes, ‘No one knows what you’re talking about right now.’ It was really funny, and as we were walking out of the classroom, that’s when we met Allie.”
“It was my first day and first class at UBC. I heard like this incredible, booming laughter, and it was your friend, Chao. I thought, I think I know what they’re laughing about…”
“So Allie says, ‘I know right! You guys, it was such a stupid question!’ I thought she was pretty cute and she asked me where the bookstore was. We got talking from there and started hanging out. I was her first friend here in Canada.”
“I know you’re minoring in psych, but what got you interested in geography?”
“It makes you think about pollution and air movements and the formation of mountains and where the water is going to run down those mountains, and how all of those processes are connected on a scale that a lot of people don’t really think about in their day-to-day life. So I guess geography makes me see things in a more global or holistic way. Shout out to Simon Donner and his course on climate change; the biggest underscored message of that course is that climate change is real. I really thought that was an impactful course and I guess it kind of shaped this whole fascination with the climate for me. I never thought of myself as a climate protector, or any of that growing up or anything, but after coming to UBC I feel like it’s such a big challenge and one that’s worthwhile devoting yourself to. So I’ve found a niche for myself in the clean energy sector and want to continue working in this field because I think it’s important.”