2022 Cohort, 2024-cohort-mentor, 2025-cohort-mentor
30
edits
Changes
I loved every single one of these experiences, and I see the profession of sales as a catalyst for learning, listening, building for connectivity and conversation, while also leaning into rejection and resilience. In one word, I'm looking to create intrinsic GRIT for whatever profession I end up moving into in my 30's and beyond (I'm currently 21).
My '''mission''' is to transform the way in which underrepresented populations are able to capitalize on economic opportunities within inequitable systems. For context, I began my life in an orphanage in Yalutorovsk, RUS (I stand w. Ukraine), and came to the United States as an Adoptee when I was a baby. This personal history has led me to combine business and social work within my current and future domains of expertise based on lived experience. As I grew up, I struggled to tell my story, and in working through this challenging process, I became a high energy communicator that who has now made a profession out of telling and listening to stories.
To align with this mission, in 2020, I co-founded the Organization of Asian Leaders (out of the asian hate that my community was experiencing at an unprecedented scale across the U.S.), which aims to develop diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives that support the Asian community at Central Michigan. As we developed the organization, we learned that it wasn't stopping hate that we could control or influence. What we could influence was COMMUNITY, and in doing so, we could build strategic alliances with the other underrepresented communities within our campus's ecosystem while championing their causes in tandem with ours. This rapidly transformed the landscape of how students saw themselves and their organizations' ability to create self-representation while navigating the higher education environment. We fostered change through fundraising, carving out budgets for ourselves, speaking publicly/ protesting for our causes, and so much more.