Above: Wang’s short program performance at the 2023 “Perseverance” Skating Club of San Francisco Gala. (Photo by Ken Chan)
Kate Wang spent most of her life on the ice.
She started figure skating just before she turned 4 years old, started competing when she was 7, and by the end of middle school, had received her first international invitation to represent the USA in Canada.
Team Focus (silver medalists) of the mixed teams event at the 2020 Lausanne Winter Youth Olympics
At 15 years old, Wang represented Team USA at the 2020 Winter Youth Olympics in Switzerland, where she placed 13th in the world.
“It’s hard to believe that was four years ago, but that was an insane experience,” said Wang. “I don’t think at the age of 15 I realized how big of a deal it was. I really wish I could go back and tell myself, ‘Take it all in. Enjoy this.’
“The feeling of being able to glide on solid water and do all these jumps and spins—it’s very, very special.”
Now a UC Santa Cruz second-year marine biology student minoring in statistics, Wang (Crown ’27, marine biology) spends a lot of her time by the water. She chose to attend UC Santa Cruz for its reputation in marine biology and research—something she had wanted to pursue since middle school.
“Before applying to UCSC I was well aware of the reputation of the marine bio program here, and also research in general,” Wang said. “I knew this was a good place for career development and undergraduate research. Once I visited the campus for the first time, it nailed down my decision.”
Kate Wang’s grandfather snaps a photo of her in a skating mall in Beijing. She was around 6 years old at the time.
Growing up in San Francisco, Wang saw UCSC as an alternative to the urban city life she was accustomed to. Although she doesn’t skate competitively anymore, she works summers at the skating rink where she trained in San Francisco.
“The sport taught me a lot about determination, work ethic, perseverance, and time management, which I used extensively in my first year of college,” Wang said.
In her first year at UCSC Wang interned at Younger Lagoon, mulching for hours a week; held a volunteer position at the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary Exploration Center; and joined a field-survey research team called Survey Slugs. She’s excited to explore more opportunities when she returns to campus in the fall. She wants to get involved with research, join a lab, and participate in other student organizations.
One of Wang’s long-term career goals is to pursue a Ph.D. and become a researcher or teacher—something she hadn’t realized she enjoyed until fairly recently. Her mother has been a university professor for over 25 years, and Wang recalls watching her mother prepare lesson plans, work on the computer, and give lectures for hours on end.
“I would think to myself, ‘She invests so much time and energy into a job that doesn’t pay that well. Why does she do this?’ And so I asked her, ‘What keeps you going?’” Wang said. “One of the things she’s told me is, ‘That light in my students’ eyes when they learn or realize something important.’”
Wang began working as a calculus tutor with Learning Support Services at UCSC during her first year and will continue in her second. Plagued with self-doubt about tutoring peers the same age or sometimes older than her, Wang often called her mother for advice. Over time, she gained confidence in herself and her teaching as she watched those she tutored grasp the material. Her work as a tutor, and creator of educational mathematics music videos that reach thousands of viewers on YouTube, ignited her joy for teaching others.
Wang began making music videos based on complex mathematical equations in high school as an attempt to make AP statistics more fun and understandable. She struggled with the subject for half of the year, but after stumbling upon recommended math parodies on YouTube, making her own video, lots of studying, and with the help of her AP statistics teacher—a former Banana Slug, Sarah Kingon (College Nine ’09, Italian studies)—she received a five on the AP exam.
Her statistics music video, based on Lady Gaga’s Telephone, reached 33,000 views on YouTube. Her most recent video, Graph the Night, a calculus parody based on Dua Lipa’s Dance the Night, was filmed at UCSC and has reached over 100,000 views.
“I did not ever expect the views to get that high,” Wang said. “The video was to help mostly myself, but also at that point I realized that the first video had done pretty well. I was like, ‘Oh, maybe this could help other students who are in a similar position, maybe are not as engaged with or are not understanding the content as much, and maybe they’ll get a kick out of this and enjoy it a little more.’”
Kate Wang takes a selfie with Steph Curry on the set of Level Up.
Another video on her YouTube channel is a meetup with All-Star NBA basketball player Steph Curry. The video, part of a docuseries Curry hosted exclusively on Snapchat titled Level Up, invited Wang to sit down with Curry for a conversation about competitive sports, specifically competing at a high level, at a young age.
“Somehow I was a little bit more nervous for that experience than when I was competing,” Wang said about filming the video with Curry. “It’s a feeling that’s hard to describe because talking to him, he’s very down to earth, he’s very relatable, and he gives advice just like any old friend would. He is somebody who is at the highest of what he does, but is as amazing as a human being as he is an athlete.”
Wang is grateful for the experiences and opportunities she’s already had in her life, and to her parents for supporting her along the way in all of her decisions.
“I’m grateful that my parents honored my choice to attend this university. I was able to decide for myself and I’m glad that I’m here,” she said. “It’s been an incredible experience since I’ve started.”