E is for Elena

Wednesday, August 12, 2015

E is for Elena

Elena Wong is an extremely creative, dynamic, and passionate young professional. Having graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill this summer, Elena is enjoying time in Greensboro with family and friends before heading to California to begin her career at Huron Consulting Group. Elena graduated with an undergraduate degree in psychology combined with a focus on business. Already fluent in Spanish and English, she studied three semesters of Mandarin. She is well-rounded, involved, and loves working to make things better. While at UNC, Elena not only served as a resident advisor, she designed and implemented a training program for her fellow advisors. She is passionate about helping leaders lead, a skill she honed during her internship at Greensboro's Center for Creative Leadership. While at UNC, Elena was captain of the women's ultimate (frisbee) club team and also played on the men's team. She spent the final semester of her senior year on a study abroad exchange at the National University of Singapore. Fortunately, she was able to practice with their ultimate club team.

Elena firmly believes students should pursue a career and find extracurricular activities they are passionate about. By the time she graduated, she had amassed over 500 hours of community service. She ascribes to the notion that if you love what you do, you'll never feel like you worked a day in your life.

When asked what she likes about Greensboro, exuding enthusiasm, Elena shared many positive aspects of our city. She loves seeing so many people out taking advantage of Greensboro's parks and trails; the easy access to nature; the running and biking groups; the not-too-hectic pace of life; the fact that Greensboro is a clean city; the diversity of the people here; the access to healthy food- especially at the farmers' markets; all the great branches of the YMCA; and the fact that our community is centrally located- between the ocean and mountains and less than an hour away from her alma mater, UNC. When asked how she is spending time before starting work, Elena told us that she is training for a half-marathon. Not inclined to choose the easy or orthodox way of doing things, Elena is going to celebrate her first week of work in California by running in the Nike Women's Half Marathon in San Francisco. We will be cheering her on and are confident Elena will finish with flying colors. Maybe we can find her an "I love Greensboro" t-shirt to wear for when she crosses the finish line!

Today is ABC Wednesday and "E" is for Elena. We wish her well in California and hope she comes back to visit often. Greensboro can be so proud of her! (See A-D in our 2015 People series, here).

Posted at 06:24 AM in 2015: 3rd Quarter, ABC Wednesday, ABC Wednesday People 2015, People | Permalink