For Eileen Wang (W ‘25), every activity is an opportunity for expression. Whether it’s the sharp crack of a tennis ball against her racket or the rhythmic chopping of fresh ingredients on a cutting board, Eileen has found a way to bring passion, joy, and dedication to every table in her life. As part of Women’s Varsity Tennis, she thrives on the intensity of the game, unlocking a piece of herself she only accesses when she plays. But tennis has always been more than a sport—it’s in her DNA. Born and raised in a tennis family, Eileen brings her work ethic from home onto the court and from the court into the rest of her life.
Working with the Netter Center for Community Partnerships, Eileen builds relationships with West Philly nonprofits, determined to engage in a way that gives back. Understanding the importance of support systems, she also makes time to develop a sense of community with women athletes through the Women’s Athletic Association.
When she’s not on the court or creating community, you can find Eileen in her kitchen—and occasionally on TikTok–cooking. Like everything else she does, it’s done with love for friends and family. Whether she is cooking pasta for her housemate or playing doubles with a partner, Eileen finds a sense of purpose, a space to express herself, and a connection to the people who matter most to her.
Name: Eileen Wang
Hometown: Buffalo, New York
Major(s): Finance and Operations, Information and Decisions
Activities: Women’s Varsity Tennis, Women’s Athletic Association, Netter Center for Community Partnerships, TikTok
Can you start by talking a little bit about your tennis career? How did you get started?
It's always been part of my life since I was four, so it's been 17 years, which is insane to think about. I grew up in a tennis family—my parents both immigrated from China, and my dad used to play ping pong and badminton and all the smaller racket sports, and then he picked up tennis in college. He loved it and ended up coaching both my brother and me to play. My mom also plays, and when my brother was younger, he used to cry playing my mom because it could get really competitive. We both ended up playing for college! I ended up recruiting for college tennis and chose Penn because of the balance. I really wanted the education, but also to compete at a high level. So now I'm here, and tennis is still a huge part of my identity!
So your dad coached you growing up. What was that like?
I feel like it's pretty common in the tennis community to have a parent be part of your coaching, but it doesn't always work out. Usually, you'll have a coach, and then when you go home, you don't have to think about tennis, but when your parent is your coach, you continue to stay with whatever happens on the court because your coach is also there when you go home. So it’s definitely not for the weak.
I think ultimately, for my family, I became closer to my parents and my brother through tennis, even amid adversity. I really think that my dad coached us in tennis not only out of his love for the sport but also to give his kids opportunities that he wished he had. He wanted us to go to good colleges. He worked from home, so he had the flexibility to take us to play after school and stuff like that. I'm sure he wished he had the opportunity to play college tennis, so I'm really grateful that he put all of his time into us.
I think because I spent a lot of time with my dad on the court, I absorbed a lot of his values in terms of work ethic and intensity. One of his big mottos in life is to trust the process, and that has transferred to me, not just for tennis but over to my academics and worldview.
What’s it like playing tennis at Penn?
It's been awesome! One of the major differences between junior tennis and college tennis is that in college, you're playing for a team, so your wins and losses contribute to a greater team win or loss. In many ways, you both now have the support of a team but also the pressure of having to perform for something greater. But I find it to be really rewarding. I think I found even more passion for the sport.
There's a part of me that I only access when I'm on the court, if that makes sense. When you are competing in a sport, or when you're in a performance group—if you're a dancer or an artist—there's a certain range of emotions, or a range of yourself that you can only access or be when you're competing. I think because of that, tennis is a great outlet. And I love my team. It's also been a huge part of my community on campus.
I heard that you went to the NCAA last summer! How did it go?
The NCAA is the big national college tournament, there's a team version and an individual version. I went for doubles with my partner Isha, who is a sophomore here right now, and she actually competed both in singles and doubles, which was awesome—she's incredible. The NCAA was a really cool experience, being my first time going. We qualified through our national ranking.
In our first round, we played this Vanderbilt team that ended up going to the semifinals and becoming All–Americans. We lost a really close match, which was a really good experience but also such a bittersweet moment–we did well against a team that ended up ranked top 10 in the country, All Americans, but we were also so close.
We went down to Oklahoma, where they hosted it, and we got to see a lot of high–level tennis. My college tennis celebrities were all there! I would say tennis is a small world. You're probably two degrees of separation from anybody, whether it's Carlos Alcaraz or somebody who plays tennis at Temple. Everybody's always randomly connected either because they played at the same academy, they’re siblings with somebody, or they had the same coach as someone else at some point. When you're halfway across the world, you could meet someone who played at the same academy as you when you were 12!
You mentioned that you play doubles. Do you typically play doubles, or do you also play singles?
I usually play both. In the college tennis match structure, we start with doubles matches, and then we play singles. So, depending on what the lineup is, you might play just singles or just doubles or both. I usually play both, but I would say that I like doubles more; it's more dynamic, and it's fun to have a partner on the court. I've probably played with almost everybody on the team, and it's always really interesting to kind of figure out how to play with a different partner. There's a lot of formations going on, and we have secret signals and everything!
I heard you’re involved in the Netter Center for Community Partnerships! What is that like, and what role do you play there?
The Netter Center for Community Partnerships is essentially a division at Penn that focuses on community partnerships, specifically in the Philly area. I joined one of their programs my freshman year called Nonprofit Connect. They run partnerships between student–led project groups and nonprofits in the Philly area. I started as a team member, then I was a project manager, and eventually, I went into a leadership position up until last semester.
One of the partnerships that stuck out to me a lot was with this nonprofit leader, her name was Suzanne. She ran a small nonprofit—it was just her—called Hope on a Journey, where she wanted to teach youth important life skills like home repairs and financial literacy. I think she's lived a lot of different lives; she’s a former pastor. Every week we'd meet with her and try to get her nonprofit off the ground. It was a way for me to step away from the Penn sphere, where everything is about what job you're gonna get or what clubs you're in, blah, blah, blah, and just a way to remember that there is also importance to giving back to the community. That experience is really refreshing. It helped me have a different perspective than what we usually have at Penn.
I’m so curious now–what are your thoughts on the “Penn bubble,” and did you expect it to be like this when you applied and decided to come here?
I definitely knew it was gonna be pretty preprofessional. That’s the one word that everybody uses to describe Penn as a school. But I think there's no way to really understand what the experience is like until you're in Huntsman at 2 a.m. and everybody around you is also in the GSRs, cramming for interviews, exams, and crashing out. I think that preprofessional culture is one of Penn's biggest strengths, but it can also be extremely challenging. I'm sure everybody knows how easy it is to burn out if you're only thinking about that stuff. That's why I think it's really important to have a community of friends who will support you, whether you're on your third super day or just got rejected, or celebrate accomplishments with you, but also be a shoulder to cry on.
Tell me more about the Women’s Athletic Association!
The Women's Athletic Association is essentially a group on campus for any female athlete. I think it's more of a community–building type of organization. They organize different events, such as dodgeball and donuts. All the different teams would sign up as dodgeball teams, and our team obviously lost to softball. I was like, “Softball, how are you allowed to be a dodgeball team?” They were just too good. WAA generally tries to strengthen the community around women's athletics. Everyone's very supportive. It's a nice environment to be part of.
As a senior looking back on your time at Penn, what advice do you have for incoming freshmen?
I think when I came to Penn, I felt like I had to be in a box. I thought, “Oh, you know, I'm part of tennis, and I'm part of this club,” and I felt like I was restricted by my identity. As I've gone through my experience at Penn, I've become more open with others and myself, and less like I should or shouldn't be friends with this person because they're like me or not like me. If I had advice for my freshman–year self, it would be to not put so much emphasis on the first impression that I have on others and to be open to being friends or getting coffee with different types of people.
Just try as many things as you can, especially because you’re in college. I think this is one of the last times you have the freedom to figure out your identity without a lot of pressure. Don't put so much emphasis on what others might think of you, what you're doing, or who you are, and just try to figure out who you want to be as yourself, for yourself.
So I heard you cook, and you have a bit of a social media presence … care to share?
Yeah, I like to cook! I usually don't have an idea of what I want to cook, but when I step into the kitchen, I'm like, “Oh, it's time to cook.” Recently, I've made a lot of pasta dishes because they're relatively quick to make, but you can be pretty versatile. I made this scallion, spinach, sausage, and tomato gnocchi, and it was really good. Then I made this seafood pasta–it was salmon, shrimp, and mushroom. I don't know, I love cooking! I love cooking for my friends. I also make really embarrassing cooking TikToks. Wait, let me actually send you my TikTok handle, it’s @eileenthemachine. Just go down a rabbit hole!
Do you follow recipes or make up recipes?
I don't like to follow recipes. I mean, I think if you have the basics down, you can have a lot of fun and be creative in the kitchen! I think there are some fundamentals of what makes a dish taste good. There's this book, Salt Fat Acid Heat, and I honestly think about it all the time. I’ll be making a dish, and I'll realize something’s missing, and then I'll go through the check boxes. I'll ask myself, “Is there salt? Is there acid? Is there fat, is there heat?” Usually, it's acid or heat that's missing, and adding it is like magic. It's crazy!
I don't bake. I can bake, but I just don't have as much fun. Cooking is more of a creative process for me, which is so strange because it's just … making food.
Lightning Round
Pre–match hype song: “Come On Eileen” by Dexys Midnight Runners.
The most underrated spot in Philly: I really like City Hall, unironically. I know it’s touristy, but City Hall is so beautiful architecturally. There's also a public bathroom in City Hall! My biggest Philly hack is just to walk with confidence into any of the hotels and use their bathrooms. One time, I walked into the Ritz Carlton. I almost got stopped, and then I just kept walking.
Favorite food to cook: Steak caesar salad. My TikTok viewers will know.
Spotify daylist: Smooth jazz neo–soul.
The best class you took at Penn: Product Design! It's a cross between mechanical engineering and Operations, Information and Decisions, and Integrated Product Design. You get to work with a team to make your own product, and it’s really fun. We made a fidget toy pen!
Weirdest food combo: There's this restaurant in Center City–it's a cafe–and they do a parmesan gelato. It was like a cheese platter with meat, and then you could dip crackers into the parmesan gelato. And I was like, “How did they think of this?”
There are two types of people … those who sit facing the GSR window and those who sit with their back facing the window.
And you are? Facing the window! Because nobody needs to see what I'm doing on my computer.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Do you know that one senior who brings a smile to everyone’s face or always has the craaaziest stories? It’s time to give them the recognition they deserve. Ego of the Week seeks to showcase seniors not for their grades or any other academic construct, but for who they are as a person and the joy they bring to the people around them! Nominate your favorite Penn seniors for Ego of the Week!
