Emma Chow - 2007-2011

BEAP gave me a community of people who were not just my classmates, but were also my teammates. Even though we all played different sports in our evenings and weekends, we were all part of the same team during the day. BEAP was a part of my day that I always looked forward to. It was a time to challenge and be challenged. A time to focus and also have fun.

My 8th grade teacher introduced me to Robert Frost’s poem, ‘The Road not Taken’ – a poem that has significantly influenced the trajectory of my life. The same 8th grade teacher who taught me that poem also questioned why I was opting to attend Birchmount for high school, rather than my in-district option. It was the BEAP program that was driving my decision. BEAP brought me to Birchmount and led me to charter new ground on the ‘road not taken’, for the first time. I took a risk, I left all my middle school friends behind, and I followed my gut and my love of sport to BEAP. My BEAP experience stretched the boundaries of my comfort zone. I was constantly rivalled by my peers and inspired by their accomplishments. Those hours pushing my limits and raising my level as I chased athletic goals, taught me lessons that carried over into my academics, friendships, and extracurriculars, and still remain with me today.

I once received the advice that I should use my sport to seize the best possible academic opportunities that I could, and that’s exactly what I did. BEAP helped me excel in my athletic endeavours, which ultimately took me to Bowdoin College in Maine, USA, where I majored in Economics and Environmental Studies. I made the most of my four years at Bowdoin, studying abroad in Sweden and opening my eyes to the world, while helping take my team to the NCAA Elite Eight twice and graduating as an All American in doubles. I leveraged Bowdoin’s alumni network to land valuable summer internship experiences and my first post-grad job at Deloitte Consulting in Boston. Since then, I have moved to the Isle of Wight, England, where I now work at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, a global non-profit dedicated to accelerating the transition to the circular economy -- an opportunity that allows me to act on passions and drive change that aligns with passions that I first started to cultivate while at Birchmount.    

My philosophy toward life is that ‘today’, is merely a single star in a massive, and growing, constellation of moments. We each have our own unique constellation of moments and we can point to the biggest stars that led us to the where we are today. BEAP was one of those major stars in my constellation and I recommend all student-athletes looking to stretch themselves and grow, not only as athletes, but also as people, to explore the tremendous opportunity that is the BEAP program. To all the future BEAP students – go make the most of it!