St. Louis Post-Dispatch Interview
Jason Wu, finalist in competitions
By Michelle B. Mueller
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 28, 2006
What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned in high school? “I’ve learned that there’s a tremendous amount more out there to learn.There’s no real limit. I was really surprised at the degree to which people devote to specific things in high school, like people who devote a couple hours a day to playing a musical instrument or who run 30 miles a week.”
If you could spend an hour with anybody in the world, whom would you choose? “Scientific studies indicate that all persons have mitochondria from DNA that came from one person. I would want to meet that one person who we all originally came from.”
Favorite books: “Starship Troopers” by Robert Heinlein.
Future plans:“I would like to be in school for a long time and want to have as broad of a liberal arts education that I can get. Beyond that, I want to do something where I’m doing something different every day.”
If there ever was a definition for an academic athlete, Jason Wu would fit the model. For Jason, a senior at Ladue Horton Watkins High School, taking tests in science, math and other subjects has become a way to compete at local, regional and national levels.
Most recently, Jason has qualified as one of 20 national finalists for the USA Biology Olympiad. He looks forward to the 12-day final round of tests and labs in June at George Mason University. Molecular biology and genetics are his favorite areas.
“It’s extraordinarily diverse,” says Jason. “It offers a lot of opportunities in terms of how to look at it and approach it because it’s about life.”
Jason also qualified for the national finals of the U.S. Math Olympiad, which entailed solving six proof-based problems over nine hours. He prepared for the competition by spending about three hours each Sunday for a month doing practice problems at St. Louis Community College at Florissant Valley.
Jason has competed with school’s Quiz Bowl team for the past three years. He also thrives on participation in the school’s speech and debate team.He often competes in the categories of policy debate and extemporaneous speaking. Preparing for and participating in debate competitions requires at least an hour after school each day and many hours on weekends, he says.
Jason maintains a 4.0 grade-point average. He is a National Merit Scholarship finalist.
Jason, 17, lives in Creve Coeur with his parents, Xiaobo Wu and Anna Xiaoping Jiang.
