“Growing up in Taiwan, at a school that was very math- and science-oriented, I felt boxed in,” says senior Eileen Liang, who transferred to Gallatin from NYU’s Liberal Studies Program. “I wanted college to be different. Gallatin was the answer.” Liang is studying identity and identity formation, focusing on child and developmental psychology, children’s literature, creative writing and cross-cultural studies and sociology. “I’m interested in how the way we grow up – the books we read, the culture we call our own – informs our identity and how we present ourselves in society and in private.”
Liang has been a writing mentor at the High School for Dual Language and Asian Studies through the Gallatin Writing Program’s Literacy Project. She has also been volunteering at Housingworks’s thrift store for two years. “I think their cause is great,” she says.
She praises the small classes at Gallatin, not to mention the “incredible professors, who allow room for independence, creativity and flexibility but also provide great guidance along the way.”
