00:00:00 Ron Rapatalo: What's up? I'm Ron Rapatalo and this is the Ronderings Podcast. Around here, I sit down with guests for real, unpolished conversations about the lessons and values that shape them. And I'll be right there with you, sharing my own take, laughing at myself when I need to, and wondering out loud about this messy thing called life. Glad you pulled up a chair. Let's get into it.
00:00:23 Ron Rapatalo: Welcome to another episode of Ronderings, where we go beyond resumes and titles to cover the real stories of purpose-driven leaders. Today's guest, Oscar Wang, is a first generation college graduate who turned his own experience navigating higher education into a movement for student success. As the founder of College Together in Philadelphia, Oscar is building pathways that honor ambition and community, helping students not just get to college, but through it. This episode is about resilience, innovation, and staying loyal to the problem, not just the idea. Let's dive in.
00:00:54 Ron Rapatalo: Hey friends, before we get started, I want to share something that's been a big part of my own journey. Two years ago, I published my book, Leverage. That experience cracked something open for me. I saw how publishing isn't just about pages, about owning a story, sharpening your voice and amplifying your impact. The part that meant the most, readers reached out to me to say they felt seen. That's when I knew this work mattered. I loved it so much I co-founded Leverage Publishing Group with friends who would make know this world inside and out. Now we help leaders, entrepreneurs, and change makers turn their ideas into books and podcasts that actually move people. You got a star in you, and I know you do. Let's chat. Find me on LinkedIn or at lepublishinggroup.com cuz the world doesn't just need more books. It needs your book.
00:01:47 Ron Rapatalo: All right, let's get to today's episode. Peace. Ronderings fam, another amazing episode with fellow API leader in the college success space that met with past Ronderings guests Donell Butler. Oscar Wang is here on the mic. Oscar, how you doing this morning?
00:02:05 Oscar Wang: Good, Ron. Ready to render?
00:02:08 Ron Rapatalo: Ready. We're gonna, you know, as many like times that we can put Ron the end like parts of verbs or nouns. I got a whole slew of them. So, don't worry. It'll like pop up aside from the Rondering. So,
00:02:22 Oscar Wang: do you do you get a nickel every time someone makes a Rond or Ron based pun or to your name?
00:02:28 Ron Rapatalo: Honestly, I would probably be paying myself if I did that, right? It happens on occasion, right? You know, back in my day, what I call my single and ready to mingle days, my birthday events had themes related to my name. So, I'm going to put this. Now, I think this might be the first time I talk about this on a Ronderings podcast, but folks who've been to those birthday events in my 30s and late 20s know Ron Bold, Celibetron, Marty GR. I know it gets worse. You want the best one, Oscar? I call the month of June Ronp. Ridiculous. Is that I still have friends like, "Do you still do Ronp?" I was like, Do you see what my life is with family? And like I I think Ronp, my wife would be like, "Ron, we need to have a serious conversation. You're not doing weekly birthday events. You get like two with one with us and maybe one with close friends." That's it. That's it.
00:03:31 Oscar Wang: That is incredible. I I feel like you should bring this back. You know, let this be a public call to your wife, who I'm sure loves and supports you and everything that you do,
00:03:37 Oscar Wang: to allow Ron to bring back because I'm pretty sure with chat now you could have an unlimited amount of names at the ready, you know.
00:03:47 Ron Rapatalo: Oscar, you're letting me go down the rabbit hole because that's how you know my newsletter observations, this podcast, there's like, you know, things within my newsletter I call wellness rawness. It's it is borderline f***ing ridiculous at this point. So, you're banning the flames. are like, you know, pretty critical of their parents, right, for many things. And I I obviously don't know about your childhood, though, we're all affected, right, by h how our parents raised us. I feel like you're quite thankful your parents named you what you were named.
00:04:26 Oscar Wang: Yes.
00:04:27 Ron Rapatalo: Which is rare. You know, a lot of people don't like their name. So, Ron, you are hopefully continuously thankful for for them.
00:04:36 Ron Rapatalo: I I am very, you know, grateful for my name. I mean, I might not have been in childhood because I didn't understand the origin story, but like adding and all the Ron puns. It's just it's amazing. It's um made me embrace my my first name for sure much much much more. So Oscar, let's get right into it, man. What is your story?
00:05:00 Oscar Wang: My story I I'm a I'm a short Asian-American first generation college student from California. I was
00:05:12 Oscar Wang: born and raised in the Pasadena area in
00:05:15 Ron Rapatalo: Shout out to Pasadena. Beautiful city.
00:05:15 Oscar Wang: Pasadena. Beautiful. Um you know I was born in the town that the Eagleton scenes in Parks and Wreck were filmed. So,
00:05:25 Ron Rapatalo: Oh,
00:05:26 Oscar Wang: yeah. So, when it was, you know, when I was dating, um, I just got married this year.
00:05:33 Ron Rapatalo: Congratulations.
00:05:35 Oscar Wang: When I was dating, Thank you. Uh, you know, I was on all the dating apps, the most popular, it's a very low bar, but the the most popular prompt that folks, I guess, clicked on or responded to or swiped right on was that parks and wreck. And So I always like to say yeah, you know,
00:05:54 Ron Rapatalo: you were a masterful brander even on the dating apps. Look at that. You got to find an insertion point. So when I was on match say that I had too many swipes. I think I went back and
00:06:07 Oscar Wang: yeah,
00:06:07 Ron Rapatalo: you can actually download your stats. I don't know if folks knows, you know, know this. So in the same way that you can actually go on your Uber or Lyft profile and figure out your rating, which is a great, you know, game that you could piss pe people off that very very quickly. 4.8 is like really low in Uber. Like you pissed off how many
00:06:51 Ron Rapatalo: 46 or 47, you know, and then people start making excuses. Oh, there was that one time a friend yada yada yada, you know. So, um, in the same way you can download your stats, you know,
00:06:51 Oscar Wang: interesting,
00:06:52 Ron Rapatalo: on, you know, Tinder or Hinge or Bumble. Nice and I met on Bumble.
00:06:58 Oscar Wang: Yeah, you can you can do that. But yeah, that was my one claim to fame from California. But my my very long story short is I decided to be the first in my family to go in my extended family to go east for college. and I ended up initially in DC where where I chose my first university because my dorm was like two blocks from the White House and and I realized that even though
00:07:34 Ron Rapatalo: I love the story. I can't wait for people to hear this. Keep going.
00:07:37 Oscar Wang: Yeah. I mean, you know, even though you know I was two blocks from Michelle and Barack and you know I don't know if the Obamas had Bo and Sunny as dogs at that point but at at least Bo was there. I think that was the first first dog. You know you you realize that being near the White House doesn't mean you get any closer to being you know in that security is real.
00:08:04 Ron Rapatalo: Oh my god.
00:08:05 Oscar Wang: It is very very real you know and not a great reason to choose you know where you go to college. So you know I I really felt like, you know, as a as the first time I was at a PWI,
00:08:14 Oscar Wang: you know, the first time I was truly away from home, which I thought I was ready for. I know a lot of folks every year, right? You know, we feel a lack of belonging. We feel lost, you know, even surrounded by a bunch of people on a new college campus. So, I thought really, really hard about where I wanted to make an impact and where I wanted to spend my college years.
00:08:44 Oscar Wang: And I ended up in a in a very tiny school outside of Philadelphia called Havford. And, you know, I I I expected just to be on campus the entire time. And when I first got there, I was the only transfer student. Like Herford's pretty known for a very communal feel type orientation. I show up and they were like, "Yeah, you're the only one."
00:09:07 Oscar Wang: So, you know, so so I really had to build for myself and, you know, find friends in a
00:09:12 Ron Rapatalo: I've never heard of a transfer orientation being once. That is bananas.
00:09:16 Oscar Wang: Yeah, it was it was just me. They also put me in a dorm. The dorm was actually called Comfort Hall. I was the only person in Comfort Hall for like two weeks cuz that's where they usually would put the other
00:09:27 Ron Rapatalo: free rain. I mean, it was, you know, you just were serviced. You had your own luxury apartment building.
00:09:33 Oscar Wang: Going from like having the Obamas as my neighbors to like standing out the window and there these like ducks, you know, and it was just me. So, I really had to, you know, find myself on campus and figure out how to navigate a completely new environment. you know, I was like this is of my doing. I I wanted to leave the other school to come here, right?
00:09:58 Oscar Wang: Um but, you know, I found community not just at that school, you know, and folks very very quickly, you know, decided to sit with me when I was sitting alone at lunch, you know, introduced me to other people. So, even though I felt like I was late to the party, I was eventually welcomed in and it was really, really phenomenal.
00:10:14 Oscar Wang: But, but I also found a home outside of Havford. I threw very lucky means landed an internship as a editorial intern at a small newspaper that covered Philadelphia schools and through that I parlayed that into an internship actually with the school district
00:10:30 Oscar Wang: with the school board at the time. Then I worked for the CFO. I I eventually worked with the superintendent's office and worked on a lot of data projects.
00:10:43 Oscar Wang: And in the middle of that, you know, I saw that there was this gap between the ambitions to change the world and to make an impact in society that we talked about in classrooms at Havford. And there was a gap with actually doing impactful work in the city. And so as a first generation student myself, I you know really wanted to bridge that gap. So I started a club at Havford where we had first generation college students who were already in college. We went into the city and mentored those who wanted to become the first in their family to go to college.
00:11:21 Ron Rapatalo: Was this the first first generation like program at Havford at the time?
00:11:25 Oscar Wang: Yeah. Yeah. It was called Mentor for Philly which is still College Together, my organization's legal name. and that was the very first iteration of what we started and
00:11:47 Oscar Wang: you know we we in that first year were really really successful. We recruited over 70 college students from Havford and from Bridmar. We had a a couple students from the University of Pennsylvania as well. And and we worked with over 500 high school students that year
00:12:28 Oscar Wang: and you know after after graduating I decided this was what I wanted to do. I I wanted to make an impact in the post-secary space and then very very quickly you know discovered that the the issues of course went beyond mentorship right? yeah. You know Philadelphia as many folks know was the poorest big city in the United States. I think we were just inched out of of that title that nobody wants by Houston, but under some metrics, I I think we still are the most impoverished major city in the United States. You know, if you are a young person in high school here in Philadelphia, your chances of actually graduating from college in the next decade are extraordinarily low.
00:12:50 Oscar Wang: So, my my wife is a pediatric oncologist. She's a children's cancer doctor. And you know what I discovered looking at her work recently because folks always are like, "Oh, her work is so depressing, right?" Well, if if if you get childhood cancer as a young person in Philadelphia, you actually have a seven and a half times greater chance of being cured of cancer
00:13:17 Oscar Wang: than of graduating from college. The college graduation rate in our city is 10%.
00:13:25 Oscar Wang: So, you know, it is that quickly became my obsession was solving that issue. And we've had many many many pivots from that mentorship model to working at different colleges to in 2020 we decided we were going to start our own college.
00:13:46 Oscar Wang: And and and so you know what began as for me just an ambition to get out of town and see the rest of the country.
00:13:58 Ron Rapatalo: Yeah.
00:13:58 Oscar Wang: And get involved somewhere else. You know, landed me in a couple different spots and ultimately, you know, we made Philadelphia our home and very committed and love being here.
00:14:10 Ron Rapatalo: Yeah. So, Oscar, two two-part question. What informed that decision to be the first in your extended family to go east and how did your family react at the time? Because, you know, not I mean, asteric different Asian subgroups react differently to their child leaving, right? So, it depends, right? You know, with Filipino, it's a little bit different. The Chinese folk, so it varies, right? So, I want to say like, yes. So, that's why I asked the question rather than making an assumption. I'm curious.
00:14:50 Oscar Wang: Yeah. I I mean, you know, for for me, you know, I'm not a huge fan of we're going to do things the way that everyone's always done them is is my least favorite answer to
00:15:00 Ron Rapatalo: which is why you found you're an entrep you're a social entrepreneur. This makes total sense.
00:15:04 Oscar Wang: Yeah. Um tradition doesn't not that you know.
00:15:08 Ron Rapatalo: Yeah.
00:15:08 Oscar Wang: But you know I I I just saw that so many folks in my extended family I I two cousins who went to UC San Diego. Yeah. Cousin that went to UCLA, another cousin go to Berkeley, you know, and I was like, "Hey, you know,
00:15:33 Oscar Wang: let me try something a little bit different."
00:15:34 Ron Rapatalo: Yeah.
00:15:34 Oscar Wang: You know, and and the UC and the Cal State systems, if you go to a California public high school like I did, those are the two major options. And so, uh, you know, I yeah, I I just wanted to do something different. And, you know, my my assumption was that I was going to go back to California after college. You know, I was I was going to go somewhere. I was gonna, you know, have 40 years and then I would come back to California in some shape or form. And and that was the playbook. So, you know, with that playbook in mind, you know, my my parents I was very lucky in the sense that my my parents always have been pretty unconditionally supportive of anything that I've wanted to do. I was not the top testing student in my high school. I was not very academically inclined in the traditional way. I always felt like I was an underdog or I was undervalued
00:16:51 Oscar Wang: relative to what the norm in society was, which I'm sure contributed to my, you know, wanting to get out of dodge in some ways.
00:16:51 Ron Rapatalo: Yeah.
00:16:51 Oscar Wang: But my my parents always were supportive even if they didn't always understand. And I think that is what is true of the of the of the immigrant experience is you know so many of you know uh the parents, the aunts and the uncles that, you know, raised us. They may not have understood fully what American culture was like or how the higher ed system works or even what you want to do in the future. You know, my aunt probably doesn't know what a podcast is, right? But you know
00:17:28 Ron Rapatalo: what what that you're doing.
00:17:30 Oscar Wang: What? Yeah. I mean, right? Like you know, but even if there is a tinge of you know, some shame and some, you know, lack of understanding, I feel like at the end of the day, there's underlying for and that's because you know I think this is hopefully universally true for humans but I think especially immigrant families there's a lot of pride there's a lot of there's a lot of love and there's a lot of support that's geared towards you know I I want you to live a better life than I did
00:18:20 Oscar Wang: right? So you know all the narratives about you know you should really be a doctor and earn a bunch of money or you know you've marry well or or you know be secure in your life. I think even though it doesn't always come off in the best way, you know, it it's really born out of love and hope that sometimes I think comes off insecurely or meanly or or or shamefully.
00:18:42 Oscar Wang: But, you know, the example I'll give, Ron, is when I told my parents that I wanted to do nonprofit work, they they cried because they were like, "You're never going to earn a salary." You know, they they thought nonprofits, you know, you know, meant that you were taking
00:19:05 Ron Rapatalo: money.
00:19:05 Oscar Wang: Yeah. Like a like a Buddhist monk, you know, vow of silence, you know, and that you were just going to go out in the world and, you know, and like give yourself to charity, right? And so, you know, even with that mindset, they were still like, "All right, well, tell us more about it and, you know, and and we'll still find a way to support you." You know, that I think has always been there. So, yeah. So, that's why I think I, you know, went east, but it was always with a plan to go back.
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00:20:42 Ron Rapatalo: Fascinating. So, of folks that I know that have founded nonprofits, this is the first time I can recollect. I'm sure there are other stories of someone who started this in college and then continued to to do this as their career, right? Right. And so I think the question I have right this is you've grown with this from college through now. So I'm curious two-part question. As the org has matured and changed, how has that impacted your own life leadership maturation, right? Because the question I'm always curious about like you started this from the start and like college Oscar and doing this versus now or people like
00:21:28 Ron Rapatalo: I'm curious what that journey and like what you'd want to say about that cuz I'm that fascinates me.
00:21:28 Oscar Wang: Yeah. I mean, I I would definitely say that when I when I first got started, you know, my my ego was what really got in the way. You know, I I was incredibly lucky, Ron, to have I truly feel blessed and fortunate about this. I was able to be surrounded by just an incredible network of mentors here in the city who You know, they didn't just welcome me into their homes.
00:22:10 Ron Rapatalo: Yeah.
00:22:11 Oscar Wang: And invite me to be a Philadelphiaian. They didn't just show me where to eat, where to shop, and you know,
00:22:20 Ron Rapatalo: it's a city of brotherly love. I'm not surprised.
00:22:22 Oscar Wang: you know, cheer on the birds on Sundays. Like, it wasn't just that.
00:22:27 Ron Rapatalo: That's no brotherly love there. As a Giants fan, I
00:22:30 Oscar Wang: It was this was this Oh, we can get into this.
00:22:33 Ron Rapatalo: I know, but
00:22:34 Oscar Wang: it was it was this unconditional acceptance that I'm sure Giants fans don't assume out of equal
00:22:42 Ron Rapatalo: throw batteries in each other. I do.
00:22:44 Oscar Wang: Yeah. Right. Yeah. No, it was this it was this incredibly welcoming sense of we want you to get to know this city and we want you to really strongly consider staying and and making an impact and not being one of those college students that just comes here and then leaves, right?
00:23:02 Oscar Wang: And I felt a ton of pressure in the beginning. I had to be successful so I can live up to the promise of all the people that mentored me, that welcomed me into their to their dinner table, gave me my my first couple of grants.
00:23:23 Ron Rapatalo: Yeah.
00:23:23 Oscar Wang: And you know, I do think that in in any stage of leadership, when you start making decisions that are about your own preservation, your own image, that ultimately means that even if no matter how passionate you are about the mission, the mission eventually is going to take a backseat. Decisions that make you look good,
00:24:00 Oscar Wang: not the mission successful. And so I I feel like for for College Together, you know, not that I didn't care about the mission in the beginning, right? But I definitely also suffered from the the initial idea disease is what I call it, which is where, you know, you think one coming up with with a great idea is all that matters and linked to that the belief that you have to stick to that idea no matter what. And what I've learned since then and what I would tell college Oscar if I could go back in time is
00:24:28 Ron Rapatalo: you asked the Ronderings question right there. Go ahead. Keep going.
00:24:32 Oscar Wang: Yeah. You know, is you know you you have to be loyal not to the idea, but you have to be loyal to the problem you're trying to solve. And that means that your ideas and the model and how you do things that can shift. It probably should and must if you are to pursue an answer to a question that you know has the devil policy makers and nonprofits and educators for generations such as the college success gap you know that we have not just in the city but in the greater country.
00:25:21 Oscar Wang: you know and your idea is not your compass. Your values are. So your ideas can fall by the wayside and they can change and they can shift and models can be different as you build, but it has to be constantly in pursuit of problems and questions and your values are what drive you and keep you on track as your compass towards those solutions. So, you know, that to me is is the biggest shift is you you have to go first from a me mindset to a we mindset about your organization and the problems you're trying to build and you're trying to solve and the the coalitions that you're trying to build.
00:25:48 Oscar Wang: But yeah, you can't be wedded to single idea and I've seen so many founders I'm sure you have as well who are like I I had this great idea you know it's it's got to be correct and then you just become you know a solution in search of problems and you you start wandering off wandering off in the wrong direction.
00:26:10 Ron Rapatalo: yes because unfortunately ro is in wrong that's a word I don't like to have ro in by the way.
00:26:19 Oscar Wang: yeah the It's horrible.
00:26:21 Ron Rapatalo: Don't let me do stand up. Anyway, so I I'm really So I'm curious, right, around this journey from the me mindset to the Wii mindset as you framed it, right? Is there because I don't believe that these changes just happened because you had a singular combo, right? Although it might have, right? So I'm curious in the how and when of the shift of this mindset, when did this start happening for you? And how was the shift? How did the shift occur?
00:26:54 Oscar Wang: Yeah. I mean, I I think in two ways. You know, the the first when I you know, I'll actually give credit to my my my very first hire,
00:27:06 Ron Rapatalo: okay,
00:27:07 Oscar Wang: was this wonderful educator and rebel rouser and advocate. Her her name is Latoya and she had moved from DC to come take this job with with somebody who had no idea how to run anything or do anything. But she was captivated by the unique approach we had at the time to trying to solve, you know, the this college access and success issue.
00:27:32 Oscar Wang: And you know, I'll just say, Ron, I I really had no idea how to do anything. And looking back, I I probably would not have recommended that I hire or manage anybody. Uh I remember for for her first day I I never oriented anybody before to a job. So I was like, "Let's just go have lunch somewhere and then we're just going to go wander around the school district building and meet people I used to work with, right?" And and at the end of the she she confided me a couple years ago. She was like, "Yeah, I was so confused because I thought I was like, "Dude, do we work out of the school this around,
00:28:20 Oscar Wang: right? But, uh, you know, she she was a really relentless thinker. You know, we were both earning no money. We were fiscally sponsored project at at the time. So, we we didn't even have our own 501c3. I had barely figured out how to set up a payroll system. You know, we didn't have real benefits and, you know, like we were this bare bones operation. Right.
00:28:43 Ron Rapatalo: Right.
00:28:43 Oscar Wang: But what we would do, you know, is after work pretty frequently we would would go get a glass of wine together. You know, we were both young and you know, happy hours where you get the best deals and you save the most.
00:28:57 Ron Rapatalo: Amen to that. Oh my god. Yes. Do some of your best thinking there.
00:30:10 Oscar Wang: Right. We would pretty relentlessly about do we feel like we're, you know, we're not being paid anything. We're not doing this for the money. You know, we we're two people. So, we do have the power to change things in our own programs if we want because we're so small, right? We're not part of this giant bureaucracy and we're both pretty motivated to solve these long-standing issues. So, we we would sit around and and we would ask ourselves pretty pointed questions about are we making an impact? Is this the right thing to do? And what should change?
00:30:10 Oscar Wang: And you know, after after a couple of these reflection sessions, you know, we saw that our mentorship program that I described was cool, right? Thunderous It was cool. Principles thought it was cool. But cool doesn't make change, right? Cool is something you could get funded probably for a while, maybe in perpetuity. You know, cool is cool, but it's not it's not change in the way that we wanted it to be.
00:30:22 Oscar Wang: You know, we saw quite frankly that, you know, our students were more confident going to college. They felt better about their financial aid packages because they, you know, they had mentors to help them read them and apply for financial all that kind of stuff. They felt like they were going to be more successful, but Pennsylvania is still one of the worst states in the country to go to college if you are low income. We have some of the highest debt rates and the highest net costs. And we saw that our students were still taking on a ton of debt.
00:30:58 Ron Rapatalo: Yes.
00:30:59 Oscar Wang: They were still going to schools that didn't have the resources to support them and they were still ending up back after a year dropping out. So cool was was fun, right? It's leading to more confidence. American students are nothing but confident, right? But it was the actual outcome that we wanted. And so we really through multiple discussions, we were like, what do we need to do to to really meet the mission and you know that I think is the best advice that I give to anybody is you have to surround yourself with people
00:31:37 Ron Rapatalo: Yeah.
00:31:38 Oscar Wang: who don't just want to be cool, they want to make change.
00:31:42 Ron Rapatalo: Yeah.
00:31:43 Oscar Wang: And what that means in practicality is that you have a lot of of really difficult conversations that are not just like, "Oh, that was a long day of work. You know, you know, things are terrible. You know, politics sucks, you know." No, you have to be willing to have a conversation about, okay, are we doing what we said we would do, what we actually want to do. And so, I give Latoya all the credit for
00:32:05 Ron Rapatalo: She's still on your staff.
00:32:07 Oscar Wang: Challenge me. No, she's she's no longer on our staff, but
00:32:14 Ron Rapatalo: Okay.
00:32:14 Oscar Wang: She was at my wedding and
00:32:17 Ron Rapatalo: Nice. Okay.
00:32:18 Oscar Wang: She got to sit at the College Together table.
00:32:20 Ron Rapatalo: Okay.
00:32:21 Oscar Wang: You know, I mean, she's kind of the VIP of the table cuz folks are like, "Oh, she's the OG."
00:32:25 Ron Rapatalo: It's incred because you know what I what I tie together is your college story of, you know, shifting from DC and being near the White House, that not working out, then finding Havford in Philly. Like, like it's the story of like being open to change right because let's be clear right you know when I think of like many a entrepreneur this case you social entrepreneur as you said ear you get stuck to the idea it's like well it's my I create this is mine I did this but you had someone who you built rapport with relationship and I would say I might argue that if you did this in the workplace versus like at you know at the at the windown at the happy hour you may not have gotten to that place. Right? Because I think sometimes you have to have a different space to be able to be able to listen and process versus like we're in a conference room and we're hashing this out. And look, conference rooms have their place. And I like nice conference rooms, right? But sometimes having a different space and time to have these conversations like we're out of work, but we're still talking about work, but like we're now in a different kind of frame of mind. I might argue got you and heard is like we need to do something different because as you said, the focus was on the purpose of why you started this in the first place which came from your own story. If you you know I've seen this as a demon wanderings guest like if you don't have the empathy and the proximity you've dealt with something like this is going to be harder for you and I said this I think when we first chatted similar like shout out to Darnell Butler for introducing us right but I'm just make sure I say his name right is
00:34:09 Ron Rapatalo: it may be harder for you to be open to the feedback that people always gonna give you when you're the boss. right you had that proxy ity and empathy from the get.
00:34:30 Oscar Wang: Well, I would also say, Ron, that to your point about a vulnerable space, I mean, I talked about happy hour. I I have something that I call the happy hour principle, which is
00:34:30 Ron Rapatalo: ah look at that. If you truly number two, I love it. Come on. If you truly want to solve if if you truly want to solve problems,
00:34:44 Oscar Wang: okay, right? Whether it's in an organization or in a sector or or whatever it might be, people out to drink and and just listen to what they complain about after a couple glasses of wine and
00:34:58 Ron Rapatalo: like truth's here.
00:35:00 Oscar Wang: I I Yeah. It's it's it's the ultimate, you know, elixir of truth, right? Which is, you know, couple glasses of wine or something stronger. But you know what what do people do at happy hour? People usually complain about you know their work, about the world, about you know and if you can be a problem problem solver where you're solving people's happy hour problems that I think is actually one of the shortcuts to figuring out what you should work on. So, you know, the example I'll give is that, you know, at College Together, you know, we we pivoted from this mentorship model.
00:35:50 Oscar Wang: We had mentors on college campuses. I eventually did a lot of work at the local community college, you know, thinking, well, that's where most people go, right? You know, if we just put a lot of support there won't be solve everything, right?
00:36:10 Ron Rapatalo: Yeah.
00:36:11 Oscar Wang: And we soon realized that issue might not be just more support and mentorship. Maybe the structure of college is what needs to change.
00:36:19 Ron Rapatalo: Yeah. Putting a bandaid on a huge wound rather than like looking at the ecosystem of the wound, right?
00:36:26 Oscar Wang: Was taking
00:36:31 Oscar Wang: educators and especially college counselors out for drinks.
00:36:38 Ron Rapatalo: And you know what we heard? I read to do that drinks in my experience. Absolutely. Just
00:36:45 Oscar Wang: Yeah. What what we heard from, you know, the you know, multiple counselors were were the same complaints
00:36:59 Ron Rapatalo: Yeah.
00:36:59 Oscar Wang: and wishes after a couple glasses of wine. You know, I really wish we had more than one community college in the city. I wish our students didn't have to take on that much debt. I don't know where to send these five students who learn differently. I know that these students you're going to go somewhere without support. What do I do?
00:37:37 Oscar Wang: And so through listening over and over again and getting more and more glasses of wine, we were like, well, wait a minute, if you actually take everything that these counselors have said, you know, and counselors are the gatekeepers and the guides and the mentors for high schoolers and what they do next in their lives.
00:37:50 Ron Rapatalo: Yeah.
00:37:51 Oscar Wang: And if we could solve for that, couldn't we one, make happy hour much more enjoyable or they're complaining less, right? And two,
00:38:07 Ron Rapatalo: yeah,
00:38:07 Oscar Wang: you know, maybe that's what the city needs. Maybe what we need is a new type of college institution that is going to accept everybody regardless of age, income, or GPA. We're going to support students in in a way that works directly for them and make college deeply personal where instead of learning in the back of a classroom and sitting there and listening to lecture, you're doing real world projects, learning skills, and earning credits as you go along. And so, When when we approached Southern New Hampshire University, our our college partner,
00:39:26 Oscar Wang: and looked at their project based curriculum and said, "Hey, can we bring this to Philly, and adapt it for 18 year olds, not just 33 year olds who are gone to college four or five times, right? Um, we think we could create something that counselors are going to want to send students to because we're going to fuse your awesome digital curriculum with our in-person support system and our knowledge of how to work with Philly students." So, you know, and you know, we're going to solve what people at happy hour complain about.
00:39:40 Ron Rapatalo: Yeah, that makes so much sense, right? Because I used to work at an adult undergraduate degree program in NYU for as a student worker, then as my first full-time job, and I disappointed my mom, decided not to apply to medical school. Yeah, I know. Yeah. Still still feel some pain about that.
00:40:03 Ron Rapatalo: And the idea of being able to create not just for adults, what I call like the second chance adult students, right? But for students right out of high school for this experience where they can get real life world skills, projects, earn credits, and have a hybrid model, right? Because the reality, right, of stu, you know, I think many in a low-inccome student is that they've got to work too, right? Yes, you want to, you know,
00:40:48 Ron Rapatalo: figuring out the cost of college is still a big issue. There's no magic wand like it's just students are going to be paid. They do what they want and not have to like really work. That's not in my experience usually as much of an option as we think. Like that's a very polyianish, right? But like allowing them to like do some of these things asynchronously work earn it just it makes a lot of sense because from the listening tour that you did, you listen to the experience of the college staff, the counselors, I'm sure talk to students too and it informed Wait a second, we can oh wait with the it just I don't want to say people don't do that level of creative thinking. But I think back to what I said earlier. I'm going to put another pin in this. That level of creative thinking doesn't come unless you do that kind of like human- centered listening design thinking that allows you to say we are trying to solve this. We're going to be very open to how it happens. Right. We know that this mentoring is not working and I'm not married to this idea because it's not the purpose of why I did this in the first place.
00:46:07 Oscar Wang: Yeah. I I mean to your point, Ron, we you know we We just hit our 40th graduate. All them all have graduated debt free.
00:46:10 Ron Rapatalo: Amen, man.
00:46:11 Oscar Wang: And a third of them actually graduated on an accelerated time frame where they got their their degree in less than two years. And half of those students work.
00:46:24 Ron Rapatalo: Yeah.
00:46:25 Oscar Wang: The other half, you know, either did not want to have a job or did not need need a job or, you know, whatnot. But it wasn't like like any two students were the same.
00:46:38 Oscar Wang: And one thing that I believe like I think two things that folks commonly have misconceptions about with college and especially this generation of students going to college is one the the type of college experience you see in the movies I is is really not the college experience the vast majority of students have. Right? The you know we're going to like pause our life and like load our car and drive off somewhere and move into a dorm. Wait, it's not old school really.
00:46:56 Oscar Wang: It's it's it's not like you see in the movies, right? My favorite stat is, you know, if you if you actually looked at the US News and World Report, right?
00:47:21 Ron Rapatalo: Those famous rankings, whatever they mean. Yeah.
00:47:24 Oscar Wang: You took the top 25 schools.
00:47:26 Ron Rapatalo: Yeah.
00:47:27 Oscar Wang: Right? That'sund and about 130,000 seats, right? 7.7 million Americans go to a two-year school or a community college, right? So, you're not, you know, you're you're talking about an experience, right? And if you look at the 6,000 Philadelphia students every year who look to go to college,
00:48:00 Oscar Wang: right? The majority of them are not moving into a dorm room and eating in a dining hall, right?
00:48:06 Oscar Wang: So, one, if you just look at the lived reality, the the lived realities of our students, we have to adapt for that. And you cannot take the same type of educational experience that a student gets when they're on a full ride at Harvard and apply that same exact pedagogical model, right, to everybody else who, you know, is not getting the same amount of resources or the same experience.
00:48:47 Oscar Wang: And and then secondly, this this this new generation,
00:48:50 Oscar Wang: right, you know, even though I'm a huge proponent of banning phones in K12, this, you know, this new generation, they learn differently. They process information differently.
00:49:18 Ron Rapatalo: They do.
00:49:19 Oscar Wang: And you know, they're not linear thinking young people, right? So they're extraordinarily actually skeptical of this idea that I'm going to go do this and it's going to output to this. I'm going to stay in this job for 20, 30, 40 years.
00:49:33 Ron Rapatalo: That's right.
00:49:34 Oscar Wang: Right. You know, so it it becomes this idea that college actually is just one of the many things not just they they can or could do, but it's one of the many things in their toolbox that's going to add up to whatever they they do in life in the future. So, you know, Some students are like, I want to be a content creator. I'm going to go to college and learn business. I'm also going to learn to trade. I'm going, you know, so their idea of what and it's not just Tik Tok, right? But Tik Tok and Forbes, I think a lot of this um their sense of what the world is is is wide open
00:50:24 Oscar Wang: because, you know, and and they don't want to just fill their time with one thing. You know, I I call it like a bento box, right? Where like it's not just call it
00:50:47 Ron Rapatalo: who doesn't love a good bench about you. You might,
00:50:47 Oscar Wang: but you might pick some sushi, you might pick dumplings, right? You know, hey, hey, hey, you could do a lot of different things. And what we want is support to help in that. So, you know, that's that's I think the big difference with how students are thinking right now.
00:51:11 Ron Rapatalo: Yeah.
00:51:11 Oscar Wang: And college has to respond and design for it. And there's a third thing, Ron, which is AI, right? Big buzzword right now.
00:51:39 Ron Rapatalo: Yes.
00:51:40 Oscar Wang: You know, students are actively using AI, right? If you think about it, when you search Google now, you know, the AI gives you a summary and an answer, right? It's currently wrong like half the time, right? I think they're working on that in Mountain View. But, you know, inevitably, in the same way that we're all now on our smartphones and, you know, it's changed how we do business and how we work and how we communicate. AI is going to continue to grow. And you can debate whether it's a bubble or not, but you know, the way that students get information in 10 years is going to be in ways that we can't even imagine right now.
00:52:34 Oscar Wang: Right? And what we're really trying to think about at College Together is, you know, universities are still in this model of you have this professor who lectures at you over Zoom or in a giant lecture hall and you take exams and tests, right? And I don't want to take anything away from anybody who wants to go to Michigan State and, you know, go to football games, right? that that experience will still and always be there.
00:53:10 Ron Rapatalo: Yeah.
00:53:10 Oscar Wang: But for the masses of people who want to access a a better life and access an affordable yet rigorous education, the key is that information is becoming continuously liberalized. Access to such is being democratized. But we cannot lose out on the human element.
00:53:38 Ron Rapatalo: Amen.
00:53:39 Oscar Wang: Because this is this is my other rendering is that you know even as technology advances and changes We're all still humans and people need people because life is people.
00:54:00 Ron Rapatalo: Yeah.
00:54:00 Oscar Wang: And you know even if people are now falling in love with AI chatbots, you know, I I still think that is going to be a minority, you know, you know, phenomenon that maybe becomes a little more popular with, you know, with JGBT and whatnot. But, you know, people are still going to need people. We saw this through COVID. We've seen this throughout human history. And I think there's a real risk that as college moves more online and as content moves more online that we lose the human element that really makes education education.
00:54:46 Ron Rapatalo: Quick pause in the action here. I know a lot of us leaders, entrepreneurs, folks just trying to do good work and felt that grind of pushing a boulder uphill by ourselves. What I learned is you don't actually have to do it all alone. Genius Discovery Program at Thought Leader Path like having a think tank in your corner. It's not some cookie cutter formula. about your story, your plan of impact, giving you the clarity and assets to take the next big step. I've seen people go through this and walk out with their voices amplified and sharpened. Some even launching podcasts like this one, Ronderings. So, if you're tired of grinding in the dark, you're ready to step into your impact with right support. Check out geniusdiscovery.org.
00:55:29 Ron Rapatalo: And at the end of it all are as humans and the ways our brains have been created, unless our brains change, which in evolution does not happen overnight for sure. We are social creatures at the end of it all
00:55:50 Ron Rapatalo: who learn by being together, right? And so I think there's just a lot there around the human experience that I think whatever the new thing is. Certainly it's AI. Who knows what's going to come. Maybe it'll be something, you know, like in Black Mirror, the chip that's embedded in your head that like allows you to like record everything, which was a very creepy episode, by the way. Super creepy, right? Yeah.
00:56:06 Ron Rapatalo: But I just love the agility Oscar that demonstrated in how you gave College Together a you know formerly Mentor for Philly right it's evolution as the space has changed especially for how the college student archetype has changed right? I just it it just shows just how like committed to the purpose you are and so my last question and so you've asked the Ronderings question I think you've given it three times. I'm going to do something a little bit offscript. I always end with what's your But you've given three Ronderings. So people listen to episode like Oscar gave three Ronderings throughout because he's got a Ronderings mind, fam. He doesn't need to be asked a question to give a rounder. So I'm going to ask you a slightly different question, right? And I'm sure as you know,
00:57:04 Ron Rapatalo: AsianAmerican social entrepreneurs, it's not a lot of us. So if an aspiring Asian-American social entrepreneur, whether they're a student, an adult, is listening to this, what advice do you have for them? is my is like kind of the parting question to answer.
00:57:04 Oscar Wang: Yeah, that's a great that's a fantastic question. You know, I grew up at an age where, you know, I'm I'm actually quite jealous now of, you know, young Asian kids are growing up in in today's America. Not because America's perfect by any means, right? Everything's like everything's amazing and, you know,
00:57:48 Oscar Wang: there there's like no more Asian hate, right? But the amount of repres representation that is out there is is so different.
00:57:57 Ron Rapatalo: Yes.
00:57:57 Oscar Wang: You know, when I, you know, when I was growing up, I remember the the only representation I felt like I had in popular media was Jackie Chan. you know, and so I was a huge fan of the Rush Hour movies, right? I was also on a flight to Taiwan to see my grandparents one time, you know, this is back when like, you know, you had like this little TV when you were flying to Asia, right? Like an international flight. But you couldn't pick your movie. They have like five channels and they just looped the movies,
00:58:40 Oscar Wang: right? I watched like Rush Hour 2 15 straight times or something like that. Like coming and going.
00:58:48 Oscar Wang: So So I I remember that my parents told me at one point, "We're going to go see Jackie Chan live." I was super excited, right? I was like I think I was like nine or 10. And I was like, "All right, great. We're going to go see Jackie Chan live. He's probably going to like reenact scenes with Chris Tucker. you know, he'll probably be there and then he's gonna like, you know, some Hong Kong triang."
00:59:41 Ron Rapatalo: Yes.
00:59:42 Oscar Wang: Yeah. Exactly. Right. Jackie Chan comes out. I think what's coming, Ron? Comes out with the microphone and he starts singing in Cantonese. I knew I knew a dialect that I don't understand. I was I gave my parents the silent treatment at that point. I think they deserved it, you know. And like I was like, Jackie Chan's a singer. remember thinking this sucks but great. I really don't know any Asian singers that you know come across you know my desk that's awesome and and so I I think the amount of representation now that is out there
01:00:30 Oscar Wang: uh is is awesome right? and I would encourage a young you know any young Asian-American right now to hopefully have perspective to really value that and to continue push.
01:00:53 Ron Rapatalo: yeah.
01:00:53 Oscar Wang: for more and more representation. I think it makes such a difference when you know you have somebody who looks like you and who you know shares some heritage with you who's doing things. You know I remember when Jeremy Lynn burst on the scene for Lin. 38 at the garden what an incredible doc. uh you know he he beat my Lakers and I was I was so happy I've the mixed before my entire life. And you know, and I was like, "Wow, there's a there's an Asian-American, you know, guy who's like screaming on the court and yelling and doing all the things that our parents told us not to do."
01:01:44 Ron Rapatalo: Yeah.
01:01:44 Oscar Wang: But I but I do feel like, Ron, to your to your question, the one area where representation has not permeated in the same way as in creative media or even in sports is is in the social sector.
01:02:02 Ron Rapatalo: Yeah, that's right.
01:02:03 Oscar Wang: You know, I'm not taking away from anybody who, you know, feels the pressure to make money for their family or to, you know, become a doctor or a lawyer, whatever the, you know, the top professions are, you know. But I do think we need more people to look at the progress that Asian-Americans have made in representation. And I I think in addition to us getting a greater voice in politics, in the media, you know, in sports, is to say, "Hey, we can also make an impact in how our governments run, in how the social sector works, in entrepreneurship that goes beyond for-profit business.
01:02:51 Oscar Wang: So, I would tell them to continue to push the envelope and to have perspective on how far we've gone in all these other sectors and you know how much more work is to be done and they can be part of that.
01:03:08 Ron Rapatalo: Well, you ended up giving a rounding without me asking you the rounding question by virtue of just your your rounding mindset. So, thank you Oscar. So, I'm going to leave off the conversation. by how do people find you? What do you want to promote?
01:03:24 Oscar Wang: Yeah, if folks want to go to collegetogether.org or follow us at College Together on Instagram, you know, we are always looking for thought partners, partnerships.
01:03:36 Ron Rapatalo: Yeah.
01:03:37 Oscar Wang: You know, if you have a a person who is young or young at heart who's looking to go back to college after a very long time or try college for the first time, you know, we have an awesome early college program for those still in high school. to be able to be a full-time college student even before your senior prom. We actually just had our first student who graduated with her associates degree and got ahead of the game. So much so that she earned that degree before she graduated from high school. So, we're really redefining what it means to be a high school student, what it means to get ahead and and also to save your money and your time when it comes to preparing for your future. We also have 21 22 31, 32 year olds
01:04:41 Oscar Wang: who are getting their associate and bachelor's degrees and learning real world skills and bettering their lives as well. And so if anyone's ever interested in working with us in you know whether it's of course a financial contribution is always welcome because as a nonprofit organization we wouldn't be where we are without our many many supporters who are individuals and philanthropic organizations and foundations. But if you just want to partner or chat more than happy to have that as well.
01:05:15 Ron Rapatalo: Awesome. Oscar, we did not get to talk about Philly versus New York City sports fandom. We will in the next round. I will spare you that conversation.
01:05:26 Oscar Wang: Yeah, you should because right now being New York, you know, except for my Knicks, but you know, your Sixers don't look too bad. That backcourt tandem, Tyrese is like the Tasmanian Devil. I mean, no one can stay in front of him. And that rookie is playing real nice. So, but what is going on with uh Embiid anyway? Okay. Okay, but it's not sports talk radio, but
01:05:52 Ron Rapatalo: this this could be the next conversation, right? Well, in the words of one of my heroes, Dion Sanders, we always come in hot with amazing guests like Oscar Wang. Peace, Ronderings, fam.
01:06:01 Ron Rapatalo: Big love and gratitude to my friend Oscar Wang for joining me on Ronderings. His journey from firstgen student to founder reminds us that impact starts with listening to our communities, to our stories, and to the needs that keep us up at night. Oscar's reminder to be loyal to the problem, not the idea. Hit me hard. What leadership looks like when ego steps aside, and service steps forward. If this conversation spoke to you, share it with someone who's working to change the system from the inside out. And as always, keep reflecting, keep connecting, and keep pondering. Peace.
01:06:54 Ron Rapatalo: Before we close out, I want to shout out the crew behind the scenes. Podcast That Matter. Their belief is simple. Every great idea deserves a voice. I'm here to cosign that. You've been sitting on a podcast idea wondering if now's the time. I'll tell you it is. Head to podcastmatter.org. See how they can help you bring your idea to life.
01:07:02 Ron Rapatalo: All right, y'all. Thanks for listening. I'll catch you on the next one. Peace. Thank you. Thank you for listening to today's Rondering. I enjoyed hanging out with me and my guest, and I hope you leave with something worth chewing on. If it made you smile, think, or even roll your eyes in a good way, pass it along to someone else. I'm Ron Rapatalo, and until next time, keep wandering, keep laughing, and keep becoming.