Becca Choi is a junior women's swimming student-athlete at NYU. She is the co-vice president of the Violets’ Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC), a mentor for the Undergraduate Stern Women in Business, and a leadership program coordinator for Academic Affairs and Advising. Choi is majoring in finance and statistics, and aspires to work as a financial analyst after college.

The UAA “Conversations About Race and Racism” series seeks to lift the voices of people of color and recognize the challenges faced in both athletics and academics at the collegiate level. By sharing personal stories, we hope to elevate the conversation about race to raise awareness and bring about change.

External Motivation

“In school, as an Asian, people often perceive us as good at math or stellar scholars even if they don’t know anything about us. I always felt like I had to live up to that standard because I didn’t want to be ‘that Asian’ who wasn’t good at math or wasn’t one of the top students in school,” she recollected. “I always considered myself someone who enjoyed math class, but now that I am looking back, I see that I may have closed my mind off to other subjects I could have been good at. The stereotype may have pushed me to work harder and be better, but my goals were often externally motivated based on impressing other people and fulfilling their expectations of me based on my race.”

Reflecting on her high school experience has allowed her to develop and follow her own advice in college. “Find a goal that is separate from all external factors that may influence it,” she recommended. “For example, one of my goals in life is to be self-sufficient. It has nothing to do with race, societal, or family pressure. It is a goal I set for myself. By creating a similar goal, you can work to be the best version of yourself and not be affected as much by external forces.”

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