Mastering Harvard at a Young Age

Kyna G. Fong ’03 is not your typical teen.

The Phi Beta Kappa, Hoopes Prize-winning 19-year-old graduates today with a bachelor’s in applied math and economics as well as a master’s degree in computer science.

Fong was also the 2001 National Collegiate Table Tennis Champion.

The talkative Fong speaks modestly of her accomplishments.

When mentioning Phi Beta Kappa, she is quick to offer the fact that she was elected senior fall and not as one of the “Junior 24.”

And as for the Hoopes Prize, one of Harvard’s highest academic awards, awarded annually to undergraduates for “outstanding” scholarly research? Fong says her thesis, titled “Multi-Stage Information Acquisition in Option Design,” probably only won because her topic was a new area.

“It was a nice surprise,” Fong says.

Growing Up

Fong started grade school a year early and skipped eighth grade as a twelve year-old when her family moved from Alberta, Canada to Peoria, Ill., and she placed a grade ahead.

The age difference was “really annoying” in Illinois because she started high school at age twelve.

“Once people knew me, they didn’t care too much,” Fong says.

Coming from a family of table-tennis players, Fong was pleased when her family relocated once more to the San Francisco Bay area, where table tennis clubs were better.

The education in the Bay Area was also more up to speed for Fong—her senior year she had the opportunity to take a year’s worth of classes at the University of California at Berkeley, preparing her for the rigors of a Harvard career.

Fong was only 16 years old when she arrived at Weld Hall for her first year at Harvard with sophomore standing.

She says she neither hid nor promoted the age differene to her roommates.

“Age has never been an issue for me, the issue is how people receive it,” she says.

Fong says that the age difference was not such a big deal because people just assumed that she was the same age as everyone else.

The first time she says she really felt the age issue was when all of her friends began turning 21 this year and going out to bars—she’s still two years away from the legal drinking age.

“It was really annoying then,” Fong says.

While here at Harvard, Fong has maintained a busy schedule outside her packed classroom schedule.

She is the co-captain of the women’s ultimate frisbee team as well as co-captain and former president of the table tennis team In the off-season from frisbee, Fong likes to pay homage to her Canadian years by playing JV women’s hockey.

She is well aware of the importance of a nicely-rounded out list of activities—Fong is the outgoing president of the Harvard Yearbook.

Despite all of that, she is also surprisingly well-rested.

“I get really grumpy if I don’t sleep enough,” Fong says. “My first year at Harvard I slept like a baby, around ten hours [a night].”

As a senior, though, she says she has “only” been able to get seven to eight hours of sleep a night.

She credits the support of her family with allowing her to remain well-adjusted and friendly.

Being far from her family while an undergraduate had an influence on her post-graduate plans. Fong turned down offers to work for major finance companies to pursue an economics Ph.D from Stanford Business School in the fall.

“Grad school is a good choice for me,” Fong says. “I feel like I have so much left to learn.”

—Staff writer Maria S. Pedroza can be reached at mpedroza@fas.harvard.edu.