Behrman Society fellow Jin Yun Chow knew when she came to Princeton it was time to step outside her comfort zone.
Starting with the decision to attend college halfway around the world from her native Hong Kong, her journey at Princeton has been shaped by purposeful choices that have taken her into unfamiliar spaces to feed her curiosity about the world.
She has mastered new languages; stepped onto the stage to act for the first time — in French; passed through the doors of prisons to tutor inmates; dived into 19th-century archives to research an underappreciated female translator; and forged deep friendships with people from very different backgrounds. Her studies in Latin, German and Old Irish, as well as literature classes in Chinese and French, have taken the Princeton senior to the top of her class. A comparative literature major, Chow is the valedictorian of the Class of 2017. She will deliver an address at the University’s Commencement ceremony on June 6.
