1/1800 Waverly Zhao

Eighteen-hundred, the number of students that attend Johnston High School. Of these 1,800 students, one was picked randomly to share their story. This 1/1800 features senior Waverly Zhao.

As Vice President of the JHS Student Council, varsity soccer player, and a student school board representative, Zhao is taking the necessary steps to achieve her goals of experiencing the world.

Zhao has said she loves learning about other cultures, and hearing about the stories of her mother’s travels helped spark a love to learn and try new things. And hopes to continue traveling in the future.

“She [Waverly’s mom] shared a lot of insight and experience that she got and things that she learned from her travels…”

After graduating from high school, Zhao has plans of experiencing the world. She has even made a bucket list of countries and places she wants to visit.

“After high school, I will be going to college and traveling a lot. I want to study abroad for at least a year in school. One of my bucket list goals is to travel to every continent, including Antarctica,” Zhao said.

Her dream destination is to travel to Turkey to experience diverse history and culture that the country has to offer.

“There’s so much history, and it’s also very beautiful; the culture is very immense and long-lasting,” Zhao said. “Turkey is like the geographical location of where Mesopotamia was. The Byzantine Empire was there, and the Ottoman

Empire. And present-day Turkey is really beautiful.”

Along with traveling, Zhao has set clear plans for her future job. After graduation, Zhao would like to pursue a career in politics.

“Next semester I’m going to be an online student and a page at the capitol which will be a 40-hour work week. I’m working specifically in the house of reps[representatives] for the House minority leader.”

Zhao sees this opportunity as a good foundation for her career in the future. Working as a page will act as a trial to see if Zhao enjoys advocacy work more or being directly a part of political work.

“I know that I like politics and I want to get into that field… This is kind of an experimental ‘Do I like working directly, like in the heat of it all? Or do I like advocacy work more?’ I’m just kind of feeling it out early on so I know what I like going into college,” Zhao said.

Zhao plans on moving to Washington, D.C., for college. She wants to study political science or international relations. Zhao knows she has the desire to be involved in politics, but is still unsure exactly what type of job she wants.

“I know I want to go into politics, but what area? There are so many ways that I could do it. I’ll likely just be somewhere in the government, but whether I’m an ambassador or if I’m like a senator or a representative, it will just depend on what I find to be the most interesting.”

Zhao’s interests and goals of working in politics and love of traveling the world can be traced back to her mother, her biggest inspiration.

“...she has had a really interesting career path. She started as a teacher, and then she went into international adoption, and now she’s a paralegal. And she has gone back to school, she’s like studied abroad and lived abroad,” Zhao said.” She’s someone that I have drawn a lot of inspiration from because of how flexible she is, and willing she is to learn new things and try new things.”

While Zhao and her mom have bonded over their many shared interests, their relationship has also been strengthened by the different experiences they had when growing up.

“I think my identity as just a multiracial student, and like I’m a person of color, but I was raised by someone not a person of color so that’s given me an interesting insight into life… even the differences between my own mother and I, of how we were raised sort of on the basis of color but also because of our situations. So I think my background and the fact that I get to draw like a part of myself from different cultures is really cool.”

When traveling and exploring other cultures, Zhao has said she often experiences them with her family. Her favorite childhood memories were when her family would travel every summer to states like Wyoming, Montana, and South Dakota.

“I also really like learning about the Lakota Sioux that are in South Dakota, and I got to go on the reservation… and that was where I learned the truth of American history, is like going on those trips, and my mom doing a good job at trying to show us all these things.”

Zhao’s mother studied abroad in China for three years, and this helped her become experienced with traveling and discovering new cultures. Now, Zhao says she and her mother often try new things together.

“She’s very big on going out and traveling and experiencing new things that are different from your culture. So we try to eat at different places. Like if we ever go out of state, we try to find restaurants that we can’t go to in Iowa. You will not catch us in an Applebee’s, ever! So eating different foods, if a new kind of cuisine opens up in Des Moines, we will immediately be going and trying it,” Zhao said.

Whether traveling the world, exploring new cuisines, or pursuing a career in politics there’s no doubt Zhao’s future will be anything but ordinary.