Alumni Spotlight Series: William Yang

William Yang is a former RSM student who graduated from Boston University in 2025 and studied Mathematics and Computer Science. Learn more about William’s experience at RSM in this question and answer blog.

How were you introduced to RSM?

I started at RSM in 8th grade after hearing about it from a friend. I was chatting with him about the AMC 8 and he mentioned that he and his brother were attending classes at RSM. My school math classes had always felt incredibly easy to me and I felt as though I was a mathematics expert (for my age, at least). 

It was quite a shock to me when I took a placement test at RSM and did relatively poorly. It turned out that there were many math topics that my peers could do easily that I was unfamiliar with, like higher degree inequalities.

What were some lessons you learned throughout your years at RSM?

In 8th and 9th grade, RSM taught me about the benefit of a strong math foundation. RSM covered math topics incredibly thoroughly, focusing on one topic per week, and it has been more difficult to forget how to solve a problem than it was to learn it. Even now, I can easily recall how to graph systems of inequalities and fast methods for polynomial division, and have taught these concepts to students I tutored.

In 10th grade, I learned about the power of taking notes. I took Calculus both at RSM and my high school. The problems at RSM were challenging, and I spent many hours working on them each week (related rates, in particular, were incredibly brutal for me). Because I took good notes and because of the great teachers at RSM, the problems in my high school Calculus class felt trivial in comparison (even the related rates problems!). 

In 11th and 12th grade, I learned about the importance of continuing to seek out challenges. During these years, I took Math Competition Preparation classes. I had participated in math competitions previously for my high school (specifically MathCounts and AMC 8, 10) but I had not been prepared for the level of rigor and the diverse skill set required to solve the problems that would appear on the homework for the MCP classes. 

I was enraptured by simple concepts such as mass-point geometry and trigonometric identities and their diverse use cases, as well as more complicated concepts such as basic group theory and modular arithmetic. Many of the concepts I've taken from that course were ones that I saw again in my college courses. While I found the competition math courses incredibly challenging, I felt my love for mathematics grow the most during those years.

How did your RSM education prepare you for college?

RSM has been such an important facet of my life, both in my academics and outside of it. Throughout college, the driving lessons of humility, foundations, and critical thinking carried me through my math courses. In particular, RSM’s insistence on showing your work clearly helped me the most while writing proofs, as the mindset is the same: how do I show the reader how I got my answer? Even in my computer science courses, while my peers were thinking “how does this work,” I was always thinking “why does it work.”

What are your career goals?

My dream is to build my career in software or data analysis, but I also want to stay part of the RSM community, so I am also working as a teacher at RSM!

What advice would you give to someone who is just starting at RSM?

If you ever struggle, just remember this: keep asking questions. One of my biggest regrets at RSM is that I never asked enough questions, either when I was struggling or when I was simply curious about a topic. Asking questions and really understanding the answers is what makes you grow not just as a mathematician, but as a person.

Thanks William! We're thrilled to have you back as a teacher and can't wait to see what's next as you begin this next chapter. Stay tuned for more inspiring stories in our Alumni Spotlight series as we celebrate the journeys of our graduates!