Jacky Chen

I am grateful for where I am today and know many people who are not as fortunate as I am, but I think it is vital to understanding who I am, my motivations, and what I wish to achieve. Both of my parents came to the US as dirt poor teenage immigrants. They are extremely hard workers and each started their own businesses, a Chinese fast food restaurant and a salon. Each spent about 70-90 hours a week working for much of my childhood. I am the oldest of 5 children and I took on a parental role at home from an early age. My parents, who never had the opportunity to go to college, show me a huge amount of respect and trust me to make good decisions. I've grown up close enough to the poverty line to get free or reduced lunches for most of my life. I didn't go to a great high school. It wasn't terrible compared to my peers back home but relative to students at USC, it was.

By helping to raise my siblings, I attained much of my self-confidence early on and used this to help even more people around me. I've entered situation after situation in which I started off being seen as "the weak" and end up helping the group as "the strong". I'm here, at a great University, now and I eagerly learn so that I can again catch up to the best. Once again, I am "the weak" with a sparser technical background than many of my talented peers but try giving me a chance and I may surprise you.