SHANGHAI Community International School senior Florian Wong is an accomplished student, musician, martial artist and volunteer — among many other things. In the midst of his IB exams and college preparation, I was able to sneak into his jam-packed schedule for a chat. My goal was to figure out how he manages to juggle all his involvements and commitments.

Q: Tell us a little about yourself.

A: I was pretty blessed as a child. My mom is French and my dad is from Hong Kong, so I am trilingual. Born in Paris but pretty much brought up in Shanghai, I attended a French school for primary school and moved to a local bilingual school later on to learn Mandarin and English. Then, in 10th grade, we chose to come to SCIS so that I could do the IB program.

Q: How have the various transitions, from the French school, to a local school and finally to SCIS, been?

A: It was a huge change. In the French system, I felt rather close to my peers, as if I was back in France since mostly French expat kids were attending the school. Then, transitioning into the local school was entirely different: People were more conservative, private and competitive. Finally, having transitioning from a local school to SCIS felt a little weird for the first two months, but I really fit in soon afterwards because SCIS provides a warm, multicultural environment where you can find people of diverse backgrounds from all around the globe.

To me, SCIS isn’t just a place for learning. People here really focus on the word “community.” At SCIS, everyone — whether it be a friendly student or a benevolent teacher — interacts with one-another to form life-long relationships.

But on top of that, the school not only focuses on students on a macro scale, but also on a micro scale. A lot of emphasis is put on the individual; teachers here are always extremely supportive and eager to help students based on their respective needs. For instance, two months ago, I was tutoring an 11th grade student for English, but was unable to continue the lessons due to upcoming IB Mock Exams, and felt really thankful that Ms Koenig was kind enough to take over.

It’s great for students to have such kind of opportunities. I come to school everyday feeling excited because I know that I can participate in an array of activities after school. These opportunities have enabled me to partake in community service, lead as president/vice president of clubs like NHS and Interact, teach beat boxing, coach MMA (mixed martial arts), etc. You don’t get these opportunities at other schools.

Also, not only is SCIS a community within the school, but leagues like ACAMIS and Dragon Cup allow students from different schools to interact with each other, thus forming even larger communities both inside and outside the school. When you say SCIS is an international community, it really is one.

Q: That actually brings me to my next question, how do you balance all the activities you are involved in with school and your social life?

A: There definitely exist certain opportunity costs that have to be taken into account when balancing out the two, but with proper time management, it definitely is feasible. I think that the IB has really helped me to develop this skill.

You know how you can have multiple desktops on a Mac right? When you turn on my laptop, the first desktop you see is literally my planned schedule for the upcoming weeks’ activities and events.

Q: Can you share a little bit more about your involvements in and around school and a bit of the reasoning behind those choices?

A: I think that life is a series of choices and experiences, and that one should try a little bit of everything and always strive to grow and learn from different opportunities. It’s the aggregate of these experiences that makes a person who they are.

When I moved here, because of the large number of opportunities that SCIS provides, I was able to get involved in things that I love, as well as try out new activities that I have never done before.

I have done taekwondo and Muay Thai ever since I was a kid, and have always loved to teach. So when I came here and met Scherwin, who does BJJ and kickboxing, we both decided that we should start an MMA club together. We ran it for two to three months, and it was quite successful. Then, I decided to continue teaching others in different areas, and started teaching English to local middle school students, orphans on Chongming Island, etc.

On top of coaching the MMA club, serving as the assistant coach of the Debate Club for the past two years has been really amazing as well. Last year, we were vice-champions at ACAMIS in Nanjing. And this year, two members made it all the way to the final. It always feels good to see the whole team strive for achievement and also to witness how your teaching efforts have helped others. Finally, I also started a beatboxing club, it didn’t run for too long but it made me realize that it’s great to have a little bit of everything as it keeps you balanced and that, kind of, goes in with the IB profile where being balanced is part of the learner profile.

Q: Thoughts about what lays ahead?

A: I’ve always had a passion for the social sciences and a thing for numbers. I like to study subjects that have a blend of quantitative and qualitative aspects, and so I enjoy fields like economics and psychology. Additionally, I’ve also thought about going into a field related to education.

Surfing on the Internet one day, I decided to research ways to splice all these things together, and stumbled across neuro-economics, neuro-marketing, and behavioral economics. Combine that with education and I’m probably looking at a career in academia within one or more of those fields. So the toughest task that lays ahead now is choosing between schools that are giving me scholarships; New York University, the University of Hong Kong, and McGill University in Canada all have stellar academics and flexible curriculums. Right now I will probably look to major in finance with a concentration in marketing and a double major in psychology, and plan to continue on to grad school to pursue what I like!