Submitted by first-year parent Jiangtao Du
When my son Julian came home for winter break, he shared countless stories from his time at UWC-USA, but one stayed with me more than all the others.
On a ledge overlooking the Colorado River, Julian and his UWC-USA classmates collapsed. They had traversed the grueling hike to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, marking the end of the first day of UWC’s five-day backpacking trip. As starlight and moonlight reflected from the water’s depths along the vast rock walls, Julian gazed directly into the night sky. Later, he would tell us, “It was the most brilliant night sky I had ever seen.”
He and his classmates—students from Morocco, Trinidad, France, and countless other places—had spent the day pushing through immense exhaustion and pain. By the time they reached the canyon floor, national identities and political boundaries had faded. What remained was a group of young people bound together by shared struggle and the rare opportunity to learn and grow at UWC-USA.
Lying beneath that vast night sky, Julian told me, he realized he had finally found genuine friendships, a community worth holding onto, and people worth fighting for.
From a young age, Julian has been obsessed with astronomy and telescopes; and recently, he has begun to pursue astronomy research, spending two summers at Caltech’s Space Radiation Lab and earning national recognition for his exoplanet research.
At UWC-USA, however, he has truly blossomed into an independent, compassionate, and global-minded young man. He continues to do his astronomy research, but he has also gained countless priceless life experiences that have helped him grow in ways entirely unrelated to the traditional path of academics, studying, and research.
Our family immigrated to the United States in the late 1990s, and we have been incredibly lucky to find stability, freedom, and a better life here. On the other hand, our children grew up in a very homogeneous New England community, where exposure to different cultures, perspectives, and experiences was limited. As an immigrant, I have always wanted my kids to see more of the world, and UWC-USA has provided Julian with the ideal environment to do so.
By supporting UWC-USA, I have the privilege of helping provide these transformative experiences to students from around the world. Programs like the Grand Canyon trip show how the school nurtures not only academic achievement but also personal growth, global understanding, and lasting connections. I hope other parents and friends of the school will join me in supporting UWC-USA’s mission, so more young people can discover the friendships, perspectives, and sense of purpose that Julian found under that brilliant night sky.