Fly fishing all comes down to physics: in normal fishing, the lure is weighed down with the bait, so it’s much easier to cast out into the water. But with fly fishing, all the weight is carried in the line. It’s a lot like a whip, explains David Feng (E ‘24), breaking down the mechanics of fly fishing with a preciseness usually reserved for an engineering lecture. But when it comes down to the reason for why fly fishing, there’s not much science to it. “Fly fishing is just more fun,” David laughs. “That was like the gateway drug.”
Walking from Locust Walk to the tables by ARCH, David—outfitted in sunglasses and a Patagonia pullover—looks ready for a hike on a perfect spring day, carrying his REI nalgene covered in national park stickers.
Originally from the Bay Area, David is an engineer studying computer science. He’s also a part of Hack4Impact, an organization that makes software for nonprofits. After school hours, you’ll find him carving slopes with Penn Ski, finding new running trails along the Schuylkill, or conquering boulders in the Wissahickon. On a nice day like this, simply put: David Feng is somewhere outdoors.
“My original goal for college was, ‘Let’s do what everyone does: study hard, go find a job, have a good social life, blah, blah, blah. But at the same time, I didn’t realize that you can accomplish those same goals [and] also be able to explore different parts of new interests as well.”
David’s freshman year started off stuck inside. Because of the pandemic, his first year was online, which gave him plenty of free time to kill. Already an outdoorsman, the combination of low gas prices and little traffic allowed him to drive around and explore the Bay. “I got really into outdoor activities—that became a center point in my life, more so than school was, to be honest,” he says. Some days, he would wake up at 5 a.m. to drive over to the beach for fly fishing, or up to the mountains for trail running before coming back for his first physics class at 9 a.m.
David’s time in nature made him realize that he loved being surrounded by the outdoors, but it also made him realize the beauty present in his own backyard. He points out that outdoor adventure sports are usually associated with the most remote and beautiful places, like Wyoming or Chamonix, France; but no longer able to travel to Yosemite and Lake Tahoe as he once did, COVID–19 forced him to find hidden gems nearby.
“There was like a seed planted before. I always liked being outside, but I didn’t realize until college that one, it was so important to me,” says David. “No matter where you end up going, you can always find good little places that mean a lot to you outdoors that are beautiful and make you stronger by nature.”
It’s a mindset he brought with him when he relocated to Philadelphia post–COVID–19. After all, Philadelphia is no Yosemite. The mountains and beaches David once frequented are far and few in between. Still, David has scoped out spots to trail run, fly fish, ski, and even rock climb.
“Philadelphia is not known as the best rock climbing spot in the world. But some of my friends and I, over the past few years, have found really little good pockets and places near the Wissahickon or even along the Schuylkill Avenue trail that have some outdoor climbing, good places to enjoy nature and enjoy the outdoors, even while being within the city,” he says. “That gave me a really good perspective on how to still be able to find those little gems of beautiful places, even if you’re in a really urban area.”
On campus, David shares his passion for the outdoors as a PennQuest leader, a title he wears proudly even outside of the pre–orientation program. In fact, when he found out that I, too, had done PennQuest, he immediately asked for my leaders’ names and listed off the top of his head half of the members of my freshman year group.
Unlike the traditional PennQuest experience, however, David’s camping trip was entirely online during what was affectionately named “ZoomQuest.” Still, when he got back to campus in the spring, the pre–orientation program organized a day hike in the Poconos where he made friends he still has today.
“Being outdoors with literally anyone can make you really, really good friends with them within a single day, which is crazy,” says David, reflecting on his decision to join PennQuest as a leader the subsequent year. “There’s this hugely transformative and magical power of being in the outdoors with other people that makes you make people really close, really tight.” Being a PennQuest leader isn’t just about leading backpacking trips. It’s about having vulnerable conversations with freshmen about their fears and hopes for college.
Between the responsibilities of caring for freshmen on the trail and rallying the troops, being PennQuest leader brought David out of his own shell. “It also did teach me to be able to like let loose a little bit and not be as uptight as I was in high school,” he says, “to be able to have more fun and, like, put myself out there more than I would have otherwise been able to do.”
Right now, David’s favorite outdoor activities are trail running, fly fishing, rock climbing, and skiing—the last a passion he particularly honed while part of Penn Ski, surrounded by like–minded passionate athletes. After graduation, he’s hoping to add surfing to his crown when he moves back to the West Coast to work in software in Seattle. The topic of his future job quickly shifts to an excited explanation of the geography of Seattle—the Cascades to the east, Mount Rainier in the south, and 50 different lakes within a 30–minute drive.
“There’s a really funny stereotype of a lot of engineers, specifically software engineers doing things like going to the climbing gym after work and moving to places like the Bay Area and Seattle and Denver and Austin and Salt Lake and all these places. I’m totally guilty of that stereotype to some degree,” laughs David, calling himself soon–to–be “Weekend Warrior.” But the intersection of his passion for the outdoors and his background in engineering isn’t just limited to the superficial. As he points out, a problem set and a camping trip aren’t quite so different.
“So [with] your harder engineering, like lots of software, you see a problem and [you’ve] got to figure out how to dissect it really well; break it down to its core components and solve each subproblem by itself. That’s more or less what engineers do for a living,” says David. “And when you’re planning trips in the outdoors, it’s a very similar problem. Here’s this big goal I want to accomplish, like: ‘I want to hike 80 miles a week.’ Then, you have to break down each day, like: How are you going to eat food?”
David reflects that his post–college clarity of prioritizing outdoor spaces in his career decision would surprise his younger self. He figured that, like his immigrant parents, he would have chosen to prioritize opportunity. But his time at Penn has allowed him to value the importance of nature in his life. “Being in a city that’s farther away from the outdoor spaces, it would take a toll on me,” he says.
In the next step of his journey, David is excited about the prospect of balancing his passion for the outdoors and career ambitions. “I would love to go out every weekend if I can—find good conditions to go out and backcountry ski or trail run or backpack, sleep in the back of my car if I need to. And then come back and have a good time at work afterwards, too,” says David. “I couldn’t imagine myself doing that when I was in high school. But right now, that’s a very real possibility.”
After our conversation, I confide in David that he inspired me to go for a run, despite my looming Google Calendar full of final essays. It’s such a perfect day that it’s impossible to resist the temptation. Work, as David points out, can get done when the sun sets. He gives me a recommendation for a running trail before ducking into Huntsman Hall to finish up some work in prospect of a fly fishing trip this week.
