Fourteen aspiring writers, who have chosen to spend their summer in the Pyrenees Mountains to learn about travel writing, land at their first stop, a small town called Moissac. They gather around their Yale professor, who instructs them to create a map of the town by focusing on the symbols and desires of its culture.
Before one student begins his assignment, he admires the green hills of Moissac and enjoys the fresh air. He starts scribbling in his notebook once he has recollected the local culture through the pilgrimage routes, the French cuisine, and the music of the area. He is Edward Dong, the Class of 2013 valedictorian, who earned a GPA of 4.75.
Dong journeyed to the Pyrenees last summer to study travel writing. Now, he is a sophomore at Yale University who is majoring in Literature.
“The transition [from Saratoga High to Yale] taught me to focus on myself. There's no point in holding on to [the valedictorian] title like that,” Dong said. “In college, the horizons are broader, and it's about finding what's right for you.”
At Saratoga High, Dong excelled in many areas across the academic spectrum. He was a math competitor who qualified for the USAMO. At the same time, he was an avid poet who recited one of his compositions in the 2013 Speak up for Change week.
Journalism teacher Mike Tyler, who taught Dong for three years, believes that Dong’s strengths lie in his “pure love” for learning about any subject.
“[Dong is] one of those people who’s not right-brained or left-brained; he does everything and enjoys it all,” Tyler said. “He’s never doing it for the grade. You could tell that he really loved the knowledge.”
Dong, whose quest for knowledge earned him the valedictorian title, believes that “competition [is] not healthy.” He realized that he had to narrow his focus to his true passions when he entered Yale, which was ranked third in a 2014 list of best colleges by US News.
“When you're surrounded by so much talent, it's natural for you to realize that all you can do is identify goals that actually matter to you and then start working toward them,” Dong said.
Still, at Saratoga, Dong pursued many extracurricular activities that he loved. While Dong was a strong mathlete at Saratoga High, his most beautiful memories stem from his experiences with the humanities.
“[I enjoyed] the energy of newspaper deadline nights, the soccer rivalry between the French and Spanish clubs and the day I spent with friends in Santa Cruz under the pretext of Ethics Bowl,” Dong said. “Most memorable, perhaps, were the afternoons of studying, crafting and reciting verse, either at a table or out in the hills.”
At Yale, Dong has continued to explore these interests. For two years, Dong has danced with the Ballet Folklórico Mexicano, a student troupe. While wearing a mariachi costume adorned with gold designs, Dong has performed for schools, retirement homes, churches and the Yale community.
Dong appreciates Yale’s community, which is more diverse than that of Saratoga.
“[If were back in high school,] I would have made more of an effort to meet people outside of the Saratoga community,” Dong said. “I never really understood the homogeneity of Bay Area suburbs until coming to college.”
Between volunteering, dancing and meeting new friends, Dong devotes time to studying literature. While he no longer writes poetry as he did in high school, he enjoys the poetry of Ezra Pound, and the works of Virginia Woolf and Marcel Proust line his bookshelf.
His interests reside in not only the classics, but emerging fields. One of the courses Dong is taking and finds the most intriguing is Digital Humanities, which examines the “cool synergies” and new disciplines arising between technology and the humanities.
Technology, math, and the humanities — these are the broad fields which intersect in Dong’s life, and have remained with him since high school, even though he has chosen to specialize in literature.
Since graduating from Saratoga, Dong has experienced many new tastes, sights and sounds from the ornate halls of Yale to the rugged hills of the Pyrenees. Dong remains open to all the possibilities that the future holds; his only major decision is to write children’s books for a few years.
“It's hard to say where I'm going to be in five or 10 years. So much can change in half a year alone,” Dong said. “I would advise students in general to focus on looking for ways to broaden their perspectives and enrich their world views.”