By Megha Lakha
When senior Evan Lee walked into my AP Environmental Science class after taking 3 weeks off, our whole class had questions. He told us that he spent the last three weeks in Taiwan with current college students from schools like Harvard and MIT.
I interviewed him separately, and he told me the program was a fellowship through Compass, which focuses on “applied rationality and effective altruism.” I must’ve made a confused face because Evan laughed and said, “I know it sounds complicated.”
Evan explained. “We talked about how I can make decisions that first of all make sense and how I can think through these decisions to make sure they’re actually good decisions,” Evan said. “Before leaving for the program, I guess I wanted some sort of prestige that’s attached with the internship, and that’s not really rational, right?” Evan then told me that after his time in Taiwan, he “realized that not chasing what I think I should be doing is okay and it helped me understand that sometimes it’s okay just to be okay.”
Evan told me he decided to participate in the program after getting accepted into Brown University. “It was kind of for resume purposes, but I also started reflecting more about what I wanted to do with my time,” Evan said. “I found this program, which was hosted in Taiwan for college students, and I was like, ‘Wait, I have to try to apply.’”
Evan said the best part of the program was getting “a lot of clarity on how to think, how to be there for others, and I think I found a community there that I think I lacked for quite some time.”
Aside from the program being one of the most prestigious around, it was also fully funded, so Evan reaped some great benefits. “They paid for my flight to Taiwan, housing, and all of our meals were catered,” he said.
The program also gave participants space to explore Taiwan. “I literally could do whatever I wanted,” Evan said. He was also able to visit some family in Taiwan, which coincided nicely with the Lunar New Year.
Evan said he was a bit nervous about the program because he would be around a lot of college students, but it helped that he was so familiar with the place. “I’ve been to Taiwan like 15 times now,” he said.
Still, Evan said he was intimidated on the first day. “My biggest moment when I was there was as soon as I went in, I was like, ‘Whoa, where am I?’ This instructor was sitting on the carpet, he had no socks on, and I was like, wait, this is chill,” Evan said. “And I guess after that, I was like this is a new environment and I wanted to embrace it to the fullest.”
But was he able to be chill about missing three weeks of school? “Surprisingly, I didn’t miss much,” he said. “I just have some makeup work and some of my teachers exempted the tests that I’ve missed, which was great.”
Evan also gave all necessary parties a heads-up before accepting his place in the program. His parents spoke with Ms. Lucas and Mr. Boswell, and they discussed what he would be missing.
All in all, Evan spoke highly of his experience but said he’s happy to be back in time for spring break. I also noticed his new glasses and joked around, asking if he picked those up in Taiwan (along with some deep ideas about effective altruism). To my surprise, he said yes, but then told me they were blue light glasses. “Performative, right?”
