Jasmine Ng

Jasmine is one of those academically outstanding young people who inspire hope for the future with not only their idealism and intelligence, but also with their ability to set a reasonable course. Jasmine is searching for many ways to save the world from climate change.

“Although this seems like too huge of a goal, it can be achieved through many gradual advancements,” she reasons, and she has started to use her UC San Diego experience to map out the steps. “I want to develop new methods to reuse, reduce and recycle waste.”

With an eye on joining a selective student organization, she has taken a co-lead role on an extracurricular project, Bottles to Models, which seeks to expedite the recycling of plastic bottles and other sources of waste plastic into 3D printing filament. “Becoming the project lead of Bottles to Models satisfies my goals of leading an extracurricular team and helping to make the world more sustainable. It also allows me to become a teacher of sustainability because Bottles to Models seeks to educate everyone about this new way of recycling, which is especially important to the management of the world’s plastic waste.”

Off campus, Jasmine is sharpening other skills as a student satellite pilot at Viasat, assisting professional controllers in piloting satellites around the globe.

Jasmine also loves to teach, and is interested in encouraging students in underrepresented communities to pursue a STEM major. As a tutor for middle school kids at Barrio Logan College Institute, she is merging her passion for teaching with her ideas on incremental ways to protect the planet. “I want to educate future generations so that they too can develop new ways to achieve zero waste in their communities.”

When teaching, Jasmine has learned to take a large, confusing topic and distill it into clear, bite-sized pieces. “In this way, the student can more readily absorb the material. I also pay attention to how each student prefers to learn, and teach accordingly. By paying attention to how students learn, I ensure that each student is retaining new material in the most efficient way.”

It may seem that Jasmine has accomplished a lot in her short time at UC San Diego, but she is always looking for more ways to use her education for the improvement of the world. “Although I am proud that I have achieved leadership and teaching positions, I will continue to set new goals to achieve.”