Meet Our Whitties: Alexander Hwang '20

Meet Our Whitties is an occasional feature produced by the Office of Communications. It features a Q&A with students from across Whitman College.

Alexander Hwang '20

Orinda, California

Economics

What brought you to Whitman?
I'm on the tennis team. The coach contacted me and brought me to campus. The community felt nice. The main thing is that I could picture myself here even if I wasn't on the tennis team.

What is the best class you've taken so far?
Race and ethnic studies with Professor Helen Kim has been my favorite. I thought it was very informative and it introduced me to a lot of things I never considered before. Helen pushed me to consider my identity and my nationality and how those work together. I didn't have any idea of what my identity was before that.

What do you like to do for fun?
I like tennis a lot. I also like getting off campus. I loved going to the Walla Walla fair. My coach loves the demolition derby and also the spooky corn maze. I'd never gone to a fair or derby or corn maze before because I came from a bigger city environment. All these activities are unique to a rural area. Our coach also takes us camping and shows us how to start a fire and where to pitch your tent. I really like that.

What's your go-to meal?
My go-to is the Halal-style chicken from Andrea's Kitchen in Walla Walla.

What do you want to do after Whitman?
I definitely want to work abroad in Asia because I'm Asian and I have a lot of family members that I've never met over there. I've taken a lot of Asian-related classes and I want to experience it for myself.

What's your favorite thing about being a student at Whitman?
No. 1, I get to have relationships with my professors. Some of them still know my name even though I only took one class from them in my first year. It's the nature of the community to have someone to go to here. The small community means that if someone has a problem, it's all of our problem and we have to deal with it. You can be vocal about it because it's an accessible and open-minded community.