Destiny Wang

What does it mean to you to be in the top 10? 

To me, it doesn’t mean that much because I’ve always seen it as a number and not a rank. I know a lot of people that aspire to be in the top 10, and that was never my goal, it was just that I wanted to get good grades.

What is something you wish you could tell your freshman self? 

 Things are not going to work out the way you imagine them to be, not only in terms of school and education, but in terms of your extracurriculars. Nothing you imagine to happen your senior year will happen, but better things are going to happen. Your expectations are good, but you will surpass them. If my ninth grade self could see where I am now, she would be very shocked.

What’s your most memorable part of high school?

The entire drumline is very close and in band, we do our own concerts and competitions. One of the most memorable experiences was our competition down in Austin because there was this one part where only the bass line plays something called the bass break. We didn’t  know if we could hit it, but we did at competition. That was a feeling you can never recreate but I will remember it for the rest of my life.

What are your thoughts on the current education system?

The current education system is somewhat flawed because there’s so much emphasis put on how you do on tests rather than how you comprehend information. A lot of the time, I know that maybe there’s a test in a class I don’t care as  much about, so I cram the day before and I’m really good at dumping all the information I learned the day before onto a test, but then I forget all of it. That makes it really hard for kids to truly learn, because once you get to college and say you want to be a doctor, if the way you passed medical school was by dumping all your information onto a test, then you’re not going to be a really good doctor. The way our high school is structured right now is training kids to do that, and if you’re good at that, it’s going to help you in high school but not as much in the world or workforce.

What are your goals for the future? 

I really want to go into real estate investments, which is not something a lot of people know about. In real estate, there are a lot of different aspects, and what I want to do is multi-family investments. I’m going to business school and I want to see where that business degree takes me later in life, but the ultimate goal is to go into real estate.

What is your secret to success? 

You have to surround yourself with people who clap for you. Someone told me this a while ago but people who clap for you, they’re the people who will be happy for you no matter what. You also want to surround yourself with people who will be proud of you no matter what. My sister is naturally very smart and very disciplined in her studying, so when I’d see her studying for a test we have the next day, we both study together and push each other. If she had not cared about her grades that much or if my friend group had been people who just slack off, I would’ve probably done the same. You need to make sure that the people around you are the people you want to be because you are the combination of the five people you spend the most time with.

What was the hardest lesson you had to learn during high school?

Failure is going to happen. A lot of times we put our success in material things such as grades and the way people view you. Although you can control your grades, one bad grade isn’t going to mess you up, but if you let it ruin your day or your week then nothing is going to work out for you. Failure is always going to happen but you have to learn how to learn from it and understand that there’s a reason behind your failure that you might not see at first.

What was your motivation throughout high school?

There are two major things that have helped keep me motivated over the past four years. First off is something most people know: having a twin. Claire and I always like to joke that rather than needing parents to keep us accountable, we have each other. Plus, she can relate to what I am going through during stressful times much better than anyone else can. 

Another big part of my motivation came simply from doing the things I loved. My schedule in high school has generally been pretty packed; however, it has always been filled with activities I truly enjoy being a part of. Contrary to many people’s beliefs, I’ve found that having a busy schedule actually keeps me more engaged in each task. Furthermore, having a smaller window of time to study keeps me more invested and ultimately results in better learning on my part.

How much effort did you put into studying after school?

A lot of the time people associate effort with time. In terms of time I think I did put a good amount into studying but not as much as most would think. Because band/drumline rehearsals took up most of my evenings, I learned to study more efficiently, on average about two hours a night. Even though the time I spent was not necessarily abundant, the effort I put into studying was definitely a lot. Most importantly for me was having effort in time management as well as exploring different review and study methods with Claire, my twin sister. She also proved to be a big help in motivating me after long nights of rehearsals. We were both able to push each other to be better versions of ourselves especially when things in school got tough or stressful.

What is your advice for younger students?

Do what you like to do and what you want to do. The things you do in high school, you’re going to spend a lot of time on if you really care about it and usually time correlates with progress and doing better. In high school you’re going to see a lot of people doing things and you’re going to feel a lot of pressure to do things just for college like joining a bunch of clubs, but do what you really enjoy.

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