A self-described ‘obsessive’ wins scholarship

When it comes to obsessions, Jay Wong has them in spades.

 First, there’s language. Wong, the 2012 valdedictorian of Baldwin High School, is fluent in six: Fujianese (a rarely spoken Chinese dialect), Cantonese, Mandarin, English, Spanish and Japanese.

Then there’s medicine. A pre-med student at Yale, Wong is working toward a degree in molecular, cellular, development biology.

And dance. A lover of movement, Wong decided upon entering college to join the famed Ballet Folklorico of Mexico, dancing “sometimes as a male, and then later as a female.”

And of course, there’s magic, which the 21-year-old has been practicing and performing for years. Now, he takes his show to underprivileged kids, both in and out of the United States.

Wong wrote about these obsessions, incorporating them into an essay that led him to win a $2,500 scholarship from The National Society of High School Scholars and Thermo Fisher Scientific, an American-based biotechnology company, for his outstanding achievement. The award honors students pursuing and excelling at a major in a STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) field.

This marks his second scholarship. The first is a full four-year scholarship from the Gates Millenium Scholars Program, which is funded by Bill and Melinda Gates.

In his most recent scholarship essay, Wong had to explain how he embodied four elements: innovation, integrity, intensity and involvement.

Wong focused on his obsessions — passions, really — incorporating his fascination of them into each of the elements. For instance, on innovation, he explained that his creativity and ability to identify patterns easily helps him to excel at magic. For intensity, he explained that the word meant more than just being interested in a subject; he was obsessed with it. The subject: languages.

Wong grew up speaking the Chinese languages and learned English at school. Later he studied Spanish. And because he believes that one can only really learn a language by being where it’s spoken, he traveled to Honduras to perfect his skills, and teach some magic.