{"id":2318,"date":"2021-07-09T15:02:25","date_gmt":"2021-07-09T20:02:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.brandonu.ca\/alumni\/?page_id=2318"},"modified":"2021-07-09T15:03:27","modified_gmt":"2021-07-09T20:03:27","slug":"iris-wang","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.brandonu.ca\/alumni\/profiles\/iris-wang\/","title":{"rendered":"Iris Wang"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>By Erin DeBooy<\/p>\n

When Iris Wang left her hometown of Luoyang, China to participate in the national cultural exchange ambassador program in Russia, it planted a seed in her heart to explore the world.<\/p>\n

Her heart also told her that \u2014 upon coming to Brandon to study as an international student \u2014 it was the place for her to put down roots.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m lucky because many people showed me their kindness and helped me along the way,\u201d Wang said. \u201cI\u2019m really grateful for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wang came to Brandon University with the desire to study psychology, she said, inspired to help people after seeing the devastation caused by the Sichuan earthquake in 2008.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a national tragedy, so many lives were taken,\u201d Wang said. \u201cIt triggered me to think about how much mental damage this brought upon people and the survivors \u2026 I started to have this strong belief of the importance of mental health.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wang ended up shifting gears and graduating with a Bachelor of Arts (Honours), majoring in economics and minoring in psychology. She followed up with a Certificate in Business Administration.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s quite an interesting journey, to think back on it,\u201d Wang said with a laugh.<\/p>\n

Wang is also the incoming President of the Alumni Association, which she said she\u2019s looking forward to.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel this is a great opportunity. I like to be involved in the community, especially with the Brandon University community because they taught me a lot. I see this as an opportunity to give back,\u201d Wang said.<\/p>\n

There were many challenges along the way, Wang said, being an international student and spending so much time away from her family.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s difficult for domestic students, too, to move to another city and be apart from family, but I would say being an international student is even more difficult,\u201d Wang said. \u201cYou need to adjust every aspect of your life.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the community Wang became a part of really helped her adjust, she said. Wang recalled how meeting her best friend and \u201cCanadian sister\u201d Elizabeth Mandziuk made Brandon feel like home.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe moment she found out I had never decorated a Christmas tree or had a traditional Christmas meal, she took me home \u2014 and I call it home. Her parents became my Canadian parents \u2026 when I wasn\u2019t going back to China, their home is a place where I spent a lot of time,\u201d Wang said. \u201cI think this is the reason why I felt so bonded and deeply rooted in Brandon and I proudly call it home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brandon University faculty and staff also played a huge role in Wang\u2019s journey and her development as a person, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would definitely say that Brandon University was and still is a catalyst of making and shaping who I am now,\u201d Wang said. \u201cI learned to go into anything with respect, an open mind, no pre-judgements and knowing how to make reasonable decisions in the face of imperfect information. Brandon University taught me all that.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Wang hopes new students starting their own journey stay true to themselves.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t ever forget where you came from and why you\u2019re doing what you\u2019re doing right now, and what you want to pursue. Don\u2019t try to become someone else,\u201d Wang said. \u201cThere\u2019s a saying in Chinese, which if I translate it into English says, \u2018be a true person before everything you do, high morals direct to great achievement.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Erin DeBooy When Iris Wang left her hometown of Luoyang, China to participate in the national cultural exchange ambassador program in Russia, it planted a seed in her heart to explore the world. Her heart also told her that \u2014 upon coming to Brandon to study as an international student \u2014 it was the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":588,"featured_media":0,"parent":2249,"menu_order":5,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2318","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brandonu.ca\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brandonu.ca\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brandonu.ca\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brandonu.ca\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/588"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brandonu.ca\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2318"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.brandonu.ca\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2318\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2322,"href":"https:\/\/www.brandonu.ca\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2318\/revisions\/2322"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brandonu.ca\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brandonu.ca\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}