Flora Yi sought out Wake Forest for the same reasons that many students find themselves on the Reynolda campus.
“I wanted to be in a place where they have a very close-knit community, because I prefer people to have very close connections with each other,” she said. “I realized Wake Forest is the perfect place for that.”
Yi grew up in Shanghai, China, with a love for sculpture and a dream to become an architect. In Wake Forest’s classrooms, however, she discovered a new passion for mathematics that aligned with her existing interests.
Two major turning points shaped Yi’s educational journey throughout her time at Wake Forest. The first came during her sophomore year in her “Discreet Mathematics” class when she discovered the importance of creativity in mathematics.
“I love proving things — when you have something from scratch and get to figure out how to turn something into something else,” Yi said. “In this way, it’s similar to art, how you have all the raw materials and can turn it into something else that’s appreciable.”
The second pivotal moment came during her junior year, when she competed in the Interdisciplinary Contest in Modeling. Yi, who contributed coding to the team’s transportation model for the city of Baltimore, took home one of the contest’s top two prizes along with the two other Wake Forest students on her team. Through the competition, Yi realized that she would benefit from more fundamental mathematical knowledge and switched her area of study to Mathematics with a minor in Computer Science.
Yi is also a member of the Pi Mu Epsilon Society, a mathematics honor society, as well as a tutor at the Wake Forest Math and Stats center. Yi has found incredible value in her position as a tutor; her work there is personally meaningful to her as she relates it to her father’s own experience with mathematics as a kid.
“When my dad was in high school, he was very interested in mathematics and placed well in many math competitions,” Yi explained. “When he got promoted to a class where everyone was very experienced in math competitions, he felt very discouraged. He decided to switch to business. He was very surprised that I ended up doing math instead of computer science, something that he thinks is more practical.”
She continued: “I justified that I really enjoy communicating in the language of math. I really enjoy tutoring in the Math and Stats Center. It’s very rewarding when you untangle math problems with students and give them the confidence that my dad at the time lacked.”
Last summer, Yi had the opportunity to study in Budapest, Hungary, where she learned about a particularly interesting matrix series. When she came back to Wake Forest, she heard the same concept repeated in Dr. Robinson’s class. This experience revealed another facet that Yi loves about mathematics.
“It’s like reading a detective novel and learning that two pieces of information that you thought would never go together actually do,” she said. “That’s what I really enjoy about math.”
Yi plans to obtain her PhD in mathematics at Clemson University after she graduates from Wake Forest. She said her goal is “to become an expert in an area of math and try to use it to help other people, either by tutoring people or [by] solving more practical problems in the world.”
“Other than that, I want to enjoy what I enjoy right now,” she added, specifically mentioning her passion for the arts.
She is unsure whether or not she will return to Shanghai or move elsewhere after graduate school.
“It doesn’t matter where I go,” she explained. “It only matters what’s inside of me and what I enjoy.”
