Michael Huang comes from a family of four – himself, his mother, his father, and his older brother (older by five years). His family dynamic involves his parents working a lot, meaning that they would often be on business trips. As such, when his brother moved out to attend college, Michael grew adjusted to taking care of himself during these times. He considers himself to be closer to his mom, although he spent similar proportions of time with both parents, attributing this consideration to the fact that his mom was typically the one to give him car rides. He’s grateful that his parents weren’t as strict as the stereotypical Asian parents seeing as they didn’t pile enormous amounts of stress and pressure on him to succeed, but rather encouraged the notion that doing his best was what ultimately mattered. He did mention that his parents did highly encourage music seeing as he started piano in 1^st grade and continued for nine consecutive years at the urging of his parents.

He feels like he got a closer with his brother especially during the summer as the separation gave them time to value each other. He noted that his brother has a positive influence over himself, which is something he often doesn’t tell his brother, but he appreciates him nonetheless, such as when his brother helped him out college applications. They recently started bonding over their joint venture to try new things: when Michael was 14, his brother took him all the way to the west coast to ski for his very first time, and he now regularly skis. Last summer, he tried surfing for the first time, and their next goal is to go heli-skiing.

At times, Michael feels like he’s a “jack of all trades, master of none” kind of guy. He dabbled in a lot of sports, like basketball, soccer, cross country, football, but retained these streaks for roughly two years respectively. At Dartmouth, he enjoys badminton and runs on his own, so although he feels like he hasn’t mastered a single sport, he’s very good at a lot of sports! One long-term commitment he’s kept is the French horn, which he plays for the symphony orchestra.

Lastly, Michael had a fortuitous encounter with AGAPE, the Asian American Christian group on campus, which he is now an active member of! As we all experienced or are experiencing, he was very conscious of being alone during his freshmen fall, so he scheduled dinner with his roommate. 6:00, the scheduled time, came and went, and so did 6:30, and finally 6:45. Tired of waiting, he eventually went to dinner alone and ended up running into a fellow solo walker named Brian. They struck up the old “Hey, are you going to dinner?” conversation, leading Brian to introduce Michael to a group called AGAPE. Not knowing it was a Christian association, Michael went along to the stargazing event that night and attended something called “large group” the following Sunday. Unbeknownst to him, large group turned out to be church, which Michael had never attended or been exposed to, so he experienced his first praise and worship session that day. Despite having little to no exposure to religion before that encounter, Michael is now a member of the praise team!