Xi Wu in chemistry lab
This humble student may say he is not “that smart,” but Southern Arkansas University senior chemistry major, Xi Wu, also known as “Western,” of Wuhu, China, seems to have discovered the formula for success.
“You don’t necessarily have to be smart. I’m not smart,” said Wu. “You have to have experiences, creativity and a passion to learn.”
Wu has such a passion for knowledge, in fact, that it carried him halfway across the world to study at Southern Arkansas as a Mulerider. He had never even been on a plane before boarding in Shanghai for a more than 12-hour flight that took him to the unknown of America, where his learning experiences started immediately after landing at LAX.
“I stayed in LAX overnight. It was quite interesting, and I met a lot of people,” said Wu.
He explained that he wanted to notify his family of his safe arrival in the States, but was not sure how to let them know. Then he spotted a man on a laptop and asked if he could quickly borrow it to send an email home. He ended up visiting with the Australian engineer for hours until the man had to board his flight. Wu then dozed off before waking to flashing lights of police officers.
Wu’s familiar smile brightens as he recalls waking to see six officers, two searching the nearby suspect’s bags, the next two with hands on their holsters, and another two radioing back to the station. Wu quickly grabbed his bags and moved away from the action. Another onlooker told him that it was probably drug related.
Through a microscope
This type of life experience is probably not what Wu’s father, Dr. Wei Wu, a professor of ancient Chinese literature, had in mind when he first thought of his son traveling to America for college. Wu was finishing his combined Ph.D. program at Beijing University when he was inspired to consider his son, a high school senior at the time, to attend a university in the U.S.
Dr. Wu only had to look as far as one of his friends, Dr. Hong Cheng, associate professor of mathematics and computer science at SAU, for insight on where Xi might consider attending. Cheng offered to contact the SAU international student admissions office. Xi’s SAT score even earned him scholarship opportunities at SAU.
From that point, Cheng continued to offer assistance as needed, and Wu said that Claudia “Penny” Lyons of SAU’s international office was very helpful in getting him prepared to attend the University. He also had contact from Dr. Lynn Belcher, former director of the Honors College, inviting him to be a member.
“One thing I learned since I came here is to be nice to people,” said Wu, who enjoys recalling all the people along the way who were nice to him, gave him inspiration and encouragement, or challenged him to improve.
He remembered first meeting Mark and Vicki Harmon, who ended up being Wu’s host family. He stays with them over school break periods when the campus is closed and has developed a close relationship with their family.
“They consider me a part of their family now,” said Wu. “God is amazing.”
His host family also gets a lot of credit from Wu for helping him pick up the language.
“They treated me like one of their own children, teaching me English as though I were starting from ground zero,” said Wu. “I’m older, but am good at catching up.”
Wu’s primary purpose here in the states is to learn, he said, and he has a long list of academic mentors.
Belcher was one of the first to make contact with Wu, and her influence continues to this day. She was his professor in Composition II, and he credits her along with his host family with helping him come so far with English.
“Dr. Belcher didn’t judge me based on my level of English,” said Wu. “She judged me and encouraged me based on my progress in advancing in English.”
Again, Wu’s smile widened when he recalled Belcher’s pride in how well his English has become after he asked her to help in revising his personal statement for graduate school applications.
Because Wu was not confident in English when he first arrived, he started in the math program. He knew that he could catch up in the language while studying something so familiar to him. Within his first few months here, he already had a job tutoring math.
It did not take long for his curiosity in other areas of science to develop, and he changed his major to chemistry under advisor Dr. Scott White.
Wu was impressed that White took several hours with him to plan out his scholarly career, and credits White and friend Nitish Narula with introducing him to undergraduate research in 2009. Since then, Wu has done two stints of summer research at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.
Wu was no stranger to research, however, having started as a boy under the influence of his father.
“When I was 10, my father was already involving me in his literary research,” said Wu. “He took me inside the words in the books being studied and taught me research basics.”
Wu continued researching through high school and even won a regional research paper competition in China.
In the fall of 2010, despite being overloaded with a twenty-hour course load of upper-level chemistry and biology courses, Wu continued to broaden his research experience under Dr. Shawn Krosnick in her genetics lab doing DNA analysis.
Wu at Homecoming
“Wes’ is a joy to work with because he is incredibly curious, energetic, and hard working,” said Krosnick. “He has been successful at pursuing undergraduate research opportunities both at SAU and other institutions; he is a great role model for our undergrads.”
He also worked with associate professor Dr. Viktoriya Street, learning the basics of microbiology research. He now works as a microbiology lab assistant for Street, an experience which he sees as possibly helping him earn a spot as a graduate assistant in the future.
“Xi is the epitome of a scholar who craves knowledge,” said Street. “He takes full advantage of this time here at SAU to learn something new, and he likes to help other students and share his knowledge.”
Wu sees his work sharing his knowledge and skills as being beneficial to himself and those he tutors. He has received encouragement and friendship from many classmates, who he has witnessed putting forth extra effort to grasp concepts that are foreign to them. One, he recalls, was a commuter from Camden, yet stayed late for all three tutoring sessions each week to have Wu help him with math.
“He wasn’t the smartest one in math, but he was willing to spend extra time to learn,” said Wu. “So I was willing to spend extra time to help him.” In fact, Wu spent his free time that semester and worked all of the problems in the back of the textbook so that student could see the process of getting to the final answer.
Along with tutoring for more than three years, he has put his math prowess to good work by serving as treasurer for the Biology and Chemistry clubs. He has been active in the Honors College, and was even on the 2010 homecoming court representing that group.
“Southern Arkansas University at Magnolia, Arkansas is where I started my journey in United States. SAU is like a home to me,” said Wu. “I love this small town. I love the people at SAU. Wherever I go, I am and forever a Mulerider.”
