Yehji Hwang is a student in the College of Arts & Sciences from Ellicott City, Maryland, who plans to double-major in English and Physics. In her first semester at Penn, she took an SNF Paideia seminar called “Collecting and Collectors” that reorganized her understanding of the world around her, noticing the dialogue between objects and time; space and presence; and people, their experiences, and the things they possess. Her final project in this course was an analysis of the Voyager Golden Record project as a collection of and monument to humanity, and this cohesion of scientific advancement and cultural memory is an intersection she hopes to continue to explore through her dual academic pursuits.
She also holds interest in leadership research, having led the first national study on how ethnicity and culture impact the leadership development of Asian American Pacific Islander girls and gender-expansive youth. She is deepening and expanding her understanding of leadership across different backgrounds and lived experiences through discussions in programs on
campus, such as Penn Global’s Intercultural Leadership Program and the Asian Pacific American Leadership Initiative.
Outside of her studies, she is committed to the arts on campus, representing the school as a singer in the Penn Glee Club. She also dances as part of breaking crew Freaks of the Beat, and is a member of The Excelano Project, Penn’s premier spoken word poetry group. She finds these extracurricular activities to be energizing and empowering; in alignment with the SNF Paideia program, she believes strongly in attending to all dimensions of wellness, and sees the arts as a pivotal part of how she contributes to wellness as a personal endeavor and a collective commitment. She is made whole by the communities she is a part of.