Each Thursday, varsityblues.ca highlights a U of T student-athlete and their academic pursuits. Each of these students achieved first class honours with an AGPA of at least 3.50 in the previous academic year. These are our Student-Athlete Stories.
Fiona Huang admits that it was a “pretty big culture shock” coming to the University of Toronto from the small town of Hay River to study kinesiology, but she was eager to make the transition work for her.
“It was really the idea of ‘go big or go home,’” said the third-year kinesiology student and track and field athlete. “I wanted a new experience; I had been in my small town bubble for all my life and I wanted something exciting and new. U of T was definitely the right choice for me in terms of academics and athletics.”
The town of Hay River, affectionately called “The Hub of the North” is located just south of Great Slave Lake in the Northwest Territories. With a population of approximately 3,500 people, it’s a small town compared to the bustling city of Toronto. When Huang graduated from Diamond Jenness Secondary School in Hay River, she remembers there were only 25-30 other people in her grade.
L to R: U of T Vice-Provost, Students Sandy Welsh, Fiona Huang and Executive Director of Athletics & Physical Activity Beth Ali at the 2019 Academic Breakfast (photo by Seyran Mammadov)
Huang has excelled during her time in Toronto. The now two-time U SPORTS academic all-Canadian highlights that the best parts of her transition were the Kinesiology and Physical Education program (KPE) and the community she’s found being a varsity athlete in track and field.
“If it wasn’t for the KPE and the track and field community, I honestly don’t think I would’ve had such an easy transition into university and the big city life,” she said.
Track and field holds a special place in her heart. Huang’s brothers are both involved in track and field and got her into the sport. Huang participates in long sprints and notes that the training she does is mentally and physically challenging but also incredibly rewarding, mainly because of the community of athletes training with her.
Fiona Huang competing at the 2019 Sharon Anderson Memorial Meet (photo by Seyran Mammadov)
“It wasn’t until I came to U of T and had the core community of long sprint girls that I really got into the groove of things,” she said. “We really push each other during training and create this kind of healthy competition that helps each of us become mentally tough and driven. Everyone on the track team has an inspirational story to motivate others and it still blows my mind how amazing my teammates and my coaches are.”
Her passion for track and field is matched by her experience in it. Before coming to the University of Toronto she ran track and field at Diamond Jenness Secondary School in Hay River, competing for Team Northwest Territories at the 2015 Western Canada Summer Games and 2017 Canada Summer Games.
Huang’s passion for track and field and her interest in medicine made the kinesiology and physical education program a clear choice. Huang noted that the smaller program size makes it easy to create a welcoming atmosphere for students.
“KPE is a family,” she said. “It’s the kindness and empathy KPE students have towards one another that builds lifelong friendships.”
Huang posing with two other KPE orientation leaders during 2019 Orientation Week (photo courtesy of Fiona Huang)
Heavily involved in the KPE community, having been an orientation leader for the program in 2019 and an executive during the 2020 Orientation Week, Huang loves the amount of energy the students bring into the program.
“You can tell when someone’s in kinesiology because they usually have that energetic and outgoing personality,” she admits. “And all week last year I felt that energy. There was always something going on.”
Medicine was a field that Huang had an interest in her youth, volunteering at the hospitals in the town, which she found both enlightening and inspiring. For her, the experience really showed her how much she enjoyed medicine and helped her understand just how much doctors were needed in rural areas like Hay River.
After she graduates, she hopes to go into medical school and get certified in alternative types of medicine like naturopathy. Her dream occupation would be to become a physician who can practice both allopathic and alternative medicine.
Huang sees herself going back to Hay River once she becomes a doctor and giving back to the community there for a few years, but notes that she could see herself working in the city as well.
“It’s kind of a double-edged sword,” she admits, “As much as I do really want to help out rural areas, I also really like being in the city and you almost get more exposure since there’s more people and more [cases] to deal with.”
It takes a considerable amount of effort to juggle athletics and academia but Huang has a time-tested strategy for balancing the two.
“The key to balancing academic and athletic demands for me is marking important dates in a calendar to schedule study and social time according to the demands,” she said, “[I] make sure I know competition dates and exam dates, which allows me to organize and plan how to spend my time most effectively.”
Throughout her time at the University, Huang emphasizes the rich diversity in the community and the sense of immersion she felt.
Coming from a small town with limited Asian representation, she appreciates the mosaic of diversity and being able to open her eyes to different cultures.
She also notes that the University’s central location really enhances the idea of immersion into a community.
“Even just training today, the track that I train on has a view of the CN tower and all these big buildings,” she said, “Hay River has maybe one tall high rise building.”
Looking back, Huang is amazed at her time spent at the university both in terms of academics and in athletics.
“When I compare where I used to train compared to where I train now, I’m definitely grateful for the choice I made to come to U of T.”