One day during her first year of classes at Leysin American School, Sara ’26 was working on her computer and enjoying her favorite Swiss snack, the quintessential paprika-flavored chips. She was eating them with chopsticks. “I don't like the sticky feeling of the residue from the chips. You have to wash your hands before you get back to what you were doing,” Sara said. Some other students walked in, laughed, and remarked that they had never seen anyone eat chips with chopsticks before. It’s a small ritual, but it reflects the truth about her life. Raised in Shanghai by a Taiwanese mother and a Swiss-German father, she exists between cultures, blending both worlds into one that feels like her own.

Moving to Leysin was her first time living outside China. “I came to be closer to my Swiss family,” she said.  It marked a shift from the intense, structured academic environment she grew up in, to a school that encourages self-direction and balance. For someone naturally motivated, that change unlocked new possibilities.

Growing up in Shanghai had shaped her study habits long before she arrived in Switzerland. “It made studying a part of my life, a habit that was really hard to get rid of, “ she laughs. Yet at LAS, she noticed a change in herself. Without the pressure of public rankings and constant comparison, she began to see her own motivation differently. “I started doing it for myself, no one was expecting anything of me.”

For the first time, learning felt like a choice instead of a requirement. “It felt very new to me. I felt a joy in learning for the sake of learning.” That shift in mindset helped her map out an ambitious academic path. In grade 9, she moved quickly into advanced classes at the Belle Époque campus, navigating the logistics largely on her own. “It was my first time standing up for myself,” she recalls. “I don’t think a lot of people know about the effort it took me to get to Belle Époque.”

By her second year at LAS Sara had already completed all of the AP courses she had set her sights on and decided that the IB diploma would give her the depth she wanted. She committed to finishing high school in three years. “I’m a senior and I’m 16. I did skip a grade.”

The pace was demanding, especially during the transition from grade 11 to grade 12. There were moments when the pressure caught up to her. “There was a time when I was almost at a breaking point.” She is straightforward about the emotional undercurrent that accompanies her self-driven workload. “I get anxious at night. I don’t sleep very well,” she said. “You can’t really shut it off and say, 'from now until the morning, I’m going to rest and sleep.’”

Growing up, performance was closely tied to identity. “In China, I wasn’t really anyone except for my grades.” One of her goals now is to move beyond that. “I want to be known for the person that I am: my hobbies, my interests, my values.”

When exam season hits, the questions return. “What if it goes wrong? What if I don’t get a five on the AP exam?” she said. “When you’re in the moment, it feels so real that you can’t really see beyond it.”

Part of her growth at LAS has come from unlearning the silence around emotional well-being that shaped her earlier years. “Mental health is such a taboo topic in China. No one ever talked about what they were feeling.” 

When she skipped grade 10, entering regular counseling sessions was an administration-recommended part of her jump. “I was so scared to tell my parents that I was going to counseling.” But she credits these sessions as a key element of her stability. “I’ve been doing well because I’ve been seeing a counselor consistently.”

Her multicultural identity remains central to her experience. Growing up, she often found herself navigating contradictory assumptions from both sides. “I always felt like a bit of an outsider.” In China, she was visible in ways that made ordinary interactions feel charged. “They would stare at me when I spoke Chinese to my mom.” 

In Switzerland, she encountered the reverse. “I’m from here, and they’re like: you don’t look like you’re from here.” These experiences sometimes left her wondering if she could fit in either culture. “I had to look a certain way or talk a certain way to feel like I belonged there.” She struggled with how much to adjust depending on the setting. “I didn’t really know how I should alter my identity to go one way or the other.” Even the simple question of origin felt complicated. “I was so averse to the question ‘where are you from?’”

At LAS she found peers who shared similar feelings. “Everyone here has a sense of lack of belonging.” Instead of isolating her, that collective experience gave her space to grow. “I think I started to thrive in that sense of non-belonging.”

Today, as a sixteen year old senior completing an accelerated track, Sara continues to shape her identity with purpose. She approaches her work with the same focus that brought her to Switzerland, but with greater awareness of the balance she needs to maintain. Her story at LAS is not defined by a single moment but by a steady accumulation of choices—academic, cultural, and emotional—that reflect her determination to understand who she is and who she wants to become.