Sheridan Kieu

Sheridan Kieu

Math - Computer Science

Muir College

Senior Nickname: Hasheridan

2023-2024 UCSD Archery Competitive Team Member

Accolades
2024 SIACC Women’s Compound Team Silver

Sheridan first began her archery journey out of curiosity during high school. She attended the Preuss School across the street from the field and found out one of her teachers was a Sun God Archery and UCSD alumni, Ted Kim. She thought archery was interesting and wanted to give it a try once attending UCSD. She joined SGA in her later years of college, buying her own bow and shooting fixed pin after trying it at one of workshops held during the beginning of the year.

Sheridan is a kind and gentle person who was a pleasure to see and shoot with on the field. Her favorite part about being a part of SGA was that she felt archery and the community was a comfort zone and a place to destress. Also, her favorite archery memory was competing at SIACC and all of us cheering each other on during the competition. At SIACC, she was able to compete on the women’s compound team and helped the team earn a silver medal in that division. She loved the energy, sportsmanship, and support that we gave each other during that time.

After college, Sheridan plans to find a job in software engineering. We wish her the best of luck in future endeavors and congratulate her on graduating!

Tyler Ray

Tyler Ray

Clinical Psychology

Revelle College

Senior Nickname: #1 HDH Hater

2023-2024 UCSD Archery Competitive Team Member

In 2023, Tyler knew he was missing something in the latter half of his college career. He was really into sports but had lost a lot of his time in trying to balance life and school. However, when he had heard about Sun God Archery, he knew that this was a chance to try something new. Since then, we have been very fortunate to share in his zealousness, sincerity, and overall insanity whenever he joins us at the field.

In talking about his favorite memory at Sun God Archery, Tyler was quick to the draw. Being the bold competitor he is, he talked about a special wager he placed with our coach Michael Yeh. After being gone and unable to shoot the previous summer, he took it upon himself to bet with Myeh that he would be able to shoot over a 240 total score. Myeh, looking at the evidence presented to him, thought he would win easily, and immediately shook on it.

Ten ends and a lot of shouting later, Tyler walked away with a free jersey, courtesy of Michael Yeh’s hard-earned cash. 

Tyler, in talking about his experience with the club, noted his “appreciation for the myriad of times [he’s gotten] to be in a space with such sweet and welcoming peers”, and we couldn’t feel more proud to feel the exact same way. We were super lucky to share the time we had with him. We wish him the best of luck in his future studies towards becoming a psychiatric nurse practitioner; we couldn’t be more worried about his patients. :)

Hanyi Wang

Hanyi Wang

Cognitive Science

Senior Nickname: Leggo My Eggo

USA Archery Level 2 Instructor
2020-2022 Vice President
2019-2023 UCSD Archery Competitive Team Member

Hanyi may be terrifying to face during a competition, but she’s an adorable pancake during club practice. She had always wanted to try archery and seeing the free workshops was her chance and she got sucked in. She originally wasn’t sure what discipline to fall into, deciding between olympic recurve or barebow. She started off with barebow because it was affordable as she was a broke international student and was under the impression that maybe she’ll change to olympic recurve by buying the tab that could be used for it. (Spoiler: she did not). Her first year competitive career was cut short due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Despite having to return to China, she kept up practicing with her teacher that also did archery. She later then was elected to be Vice President for 2020-2021 and then reelected for 2021-2022.

After the university opened up for Fall 2022, she has returned not just to do archery but participate in her favorite part of SGA which was the social experience of meeting people and friendship. Throughout her later years in this club she became regarded as the barebow archer of SGA as she dominates indoor. She also had her fair share of mishaps happen during competitions as her weirdest memory during 2023 Indoor Nationals where she went to the bathroom and came back to shoot her end in 20 seconds. Unfortunately, due to finances and a wrist injury she wasn’t able to compete in outdoor season. However during the twilight months of her graduating year she finally participated in an outdoor competition, 2023 CORR, where she faced off against an eternal UCI rival.

Moving forward, she aims to stay in San Diego and will be taking a gap year to study for the GRE and prepare for grad school applications. She wants to continue doing archery after graduation as well. We wish her the best of luck when it comes to applying to grad school and hope she becomes a graduate student at UCSD. May she perfect a waffle recipe with her new waffle iron.

Greatest Pancake Recipe:
Oatmeal Flour
Banana
Real Milk (formerly plant milk)

Shane Jost

Shane Jost

Marine Biology, Minors in Anthropology and Archaeology

Sixth College

Senior Nickname: Trad Chad

2023-2023 Competitive Team Member

Accolades
2023 West Regional Barebow Mixed Team Bronze

Although Shane was a late addition to our club, he left a lasting impression. Shane shot for many of his formative years at Camp Marston, however he fell out of archery in his later teen years. He shot occasionally post-high school, but it wasn’t until he transferred to UCSD that he decided to full send on archery in his senior year. He shot 3200 arrows the December before trying out for the outdoor team, which he made by shooting a traditional, off the shelf bow with feather arrows, a stand out from the typical olympic style recurve bow most club members shoot.

Despite not shooting your typical barebow setup, Shane truly embodies the barebow mentality. His favorite archery memories come from tournaments where he and his opponents would sing songs during shooting matches just for the silliness of it. He finds it important to share in the vibes with his fellow barebows.

He loves the feeling of being part of a team that SGA brought for him. Going into his only collegiate tournament with the team, WROCC, Shane felt like an alien because of shooting traditional archery. However, due to Coach Keaton sticking by his side throughout all his Olympic Rounds, he truly felt supported. Trad is a different vibe, being in a competitive space is unknown and out of place, but being in those individual rounds and team rounds at Westies 2023 he really felt like part of a team. We really appreciate the spirit and determination Shane brought to our team!

Shane has had a lot of struggles throughout his archery career, from a fairly severe recurring shoulder injury to his low income compared to most archers, but it just meant he had to work against the odds. He really puts his all into archery, shooting countless arrows, focusing heavily on his form, and even coding a score tracker to follow his and his teammates’ improvement throughout the months. He emphasizes that in archery, form will get you everywhere.

After graduation, Shane plans to train for his private pilot certification and apply to the International Guard for a fighter slot. He’s also publishing a novel serially in his free time.

On the archery side, Shane has helped form a community college archery team while he gets his pilot certification. For that team, he earned a gold individual medal at WROCC 2024. He intends to transfer to olympic recurve and aims for a spot on the Armed Forces Archery Team. We wish Shane the best in all his future endeavors, and look forward to seeing him at more collegiate tournaments next year!

Luis Zhang

Luis Zhang

Math Econ

Senior Nickname: The Gacha Grindset

2019-2023 UCSD Archery Competitive Team Member

Luis first found out about Sun God Archery on Library walk. From there, he went on to join in on the workshops and practice. He joined the archery team shortly after and competed in SIACC in 2020. He wasn’t just on the archery team, he was also part of Triton Siege. Thus with the COVID-19 lock downs occurring, he is suspect #1 in bringing the culture of Siege into SGA during the pandemic from 2020-2021.

Once the pandemic has ended, he returned to the archery team competing in more tournaments leading up to his last tournament with the club, SoCal Showdown. With his return, he has a desire to wipe out the barebow division for some reason. However, he requests a barebow shooter, Brooklyn, to shoot an apple off his head should he ever questions something. If he wanted to live instead he would call on Michael Yeh.

Luis continues to do archery after graduation. He is currently pursuing a masters degree in Financial Engineering at Columbia. There he started to form a mens archery club.

Yu-Ting Chen

Yu-Ting Chen

PhD Chemical Engineering

Senior Nickname: King yuting

2021-2022 UCSD Archery Competitive Team Member

Yu-Ting first joined SGA in 2021, which was also his first year competing. Prior to joining SGA, Yu-Ting first learned archery through the UCSD Recreational classes and from there he became committed to this sport. Searching the internet for his first starter bow he bought a Samick Sage recurve bow continuing his practice. Later he then looked for his second bow…specially he was looking for the highest poundage in a commercial recurve bow with his draw length bringing the draw weight to 80#.

His favorite memory with SGA was his first year competing for the team during indoor season at SIACC and Indoor Nationals. Unfortunately he was not able to compete in outdoor season much as he has much conflict with his work as a PHD student. Despite this, Yu-Ting made an effort to practice at the field and shoot more in his apartment.

Yu-Ting plans to stay in the area looking for a industry job based around batteries of which he has done much research on. He also had bought a hunting compound bow in hopes of hunting as well in the future. We wish the best of luck with Yu-Ting with his future career.

Nick Hale

Nick Hale

Chemistry

Warren College

Senior Nickname: All Hail Hale

2019-2020 UCSD Archery Competitive Team Member

Nick first joined SGA during his freshman year of college after one of the officers shared about it in a Class of 2023 discord. SGA was the first club he had heard of and decided to join to make some new friends. During his first year, Nick shot in the bowhunter division and competed with the team at several tournaments. However, after shooting bowhunter his first year, Nick decided to switch to barebow because he felt he wanted to be challenged. He explained that while 9s and 10s were the standard for bowhunter and compound shooters, he liked the idea of being competitive with scores outside of the gold ring. Furthermore, Nick says that he enjoys shooting barebow because he is able to see how he is improving over time.

After his first year, Nick explains that a combination of COVID and other activities made it more challenging for him to come to the field regularly. Despite this, Nick has fond memories of the club, especially at team dinners where he could celebrate and bond with his teammates after tournaments. Some of Nick’s favorite memories with the club were spending time with his family and group events with multiple families.

After graduating, Nick is planning on moving to Carlsbad for his job at ThermoFisher, where he will be working on the company’s data architecture. We want to congratulate Nick on his accomplishments and wish him luck on his future professional career!

Matthew Oh

Matthew Oh

Computer Science

Warren College

Senior Nickname: McMatthew

2022-2023 UCSD Archery Competitive Team Member

Matthew joined SGA during the Spring of 2022 and made a majority of his memories with the club in his senior year. Matthew’s first exposure to archery was years ago at a summer camp, but didn’t continue pursuing it until he came to UCSD. He had originally found out about the club at the 2021-2022 school year’s workshops but was apathetic at first continuing his time shooting. Luckily he would continue his archery journey with the club during the 2022-2023 school year where he would strive and work hard to become a competitive team member for both the indoor and outdoor seasons.

During his time with SGA, one of Matthew’s most memorable (for better or for worse) moments was the trip to Sacramento for the West Regional Outdoor Collegiate Championship. During the trip, fellow archer and senior Shane Jost’s birthday had been incorrect on one of his documents leading to complications at the airport. Not only that, when some of the team dined at a Denny’s: Matthew and fellow club member Randy Duong became trapped within the bathroom when the door wouldn’t open. Other strange and coincidental occurrences included, Matthew’s visit to Sacramento was a strange one and he currently holds no desire to return any time soon.

However not all of Matthew’s time with SGA has been marked with torment. Although the archery club is where Matthew had honed his skills as an archer, it’s also where he made some great friends too. Matthews' favorite part of the club was the people: having made friends like fellow seniors Tiffany Lin and Shane Jost just to name a couple. Getting to know everyone was one of the greatest parts of Matthew’s time with the club. Whether it was talking on the field, going to catch Pokémon in Pokémon Go with friends, or at competitions across the state: Matthew’s time with SGA was only enhanced by those he spent time with.

Matthew now plans on looking for a job and whilst still residing in San Diego. All the while, he commented that he might return to the field as a community member to shoot more with the club. We wish the best of luck with Matthew, and hope we see him on the field once more sometime soon.

Chris Cardenas

Chris Cardenas

History

Revelle College

Senior Nickname: SGA Drip Model

2022-2023 UCSD Archery Competitive Team Member

Chris transferred from MSJC to UCSD in Fall 2021. He heard of SGA through a friend teaching archery at a summer camp but couldn’t attend a workshop. The following year one of his roommates knew a friend going to one of the SGA workshops and invited him to participate. From then on he became an active club member throughout the 2022-2023 academic year being on the team for both outdoor and indoor.

During his time with SGA, Chris has made many memories. One of his best was the indoor team qualifications, where he made it in at the very very last qualifier with an exact score of 150 shooting Olympic Recurve. With him barely sliding in with a 3, miss and 8 on the last end. This kick started his one and only year shooting with the archery team. His worst memory was during West Regionals at Sacramento, where he missed during his one arrow shoot off. This didn’t stop him as he went to CA State Outdoors after graduating to make it up along with other tournaments.

Chris loved the club as he enjoys making and shooting with friends, a great way to relax… and meet some interesting people. He thinks that more people should do this sport with a club since archery skill isn’t a requirement. “When you let go of a shot and it feels wrong, but you hit a 10 or 9, because that sums up archery. If you can do everything bad and do good, or vice versa. It just goes to show how little control you have over the arrow.”

Chris plans on becoming a history teacher in his hometown. He’s entering a teaching credential program at CSUSB after graduation. We’re sure that he’ll be a great teacher and wish him and his future students the best.

Francesca Aleonar

Francesca Aleonar

International STudies: Linguistics

Marshall College

Senior Nickname: NTS Kyudo Alchemist

2021-2022 UCSD Archery Competitive Team Member

As a transfer student during the COVID quarantine, Francesca didn’t have much time with the club. She joined in 2020, but only had about a month or so of practice before quarantine and vaccine mandates forced her to stay home. However, once she was able to come to the field more and actually practice, Francesca became a core member of the team, competing as one of our barebow members on the mixed team during the outdoor season and the female barebow team when we could field one.

During the pandemic, Francesca started archery as something to do to get outside and have a little fun while doing it. So, she started taking lessons at a local archery range. Once Francesca came to UCSD, her mom saw a flyer for SGA advertising the workshops, and encouraged Francesca to join. Once she joined (and could actually come to the field), Francesca found her place on campus. As a commuter student, Francesca didn’t have many options to socialize, so joining this club gave her an opportunity to make new friends and get outside.

One of her favorite memories that she made during her time with the club was when she became a prophet… of a rubber chicken. Dubbed “Sun Gallo”, the rubber chicken became a sort of meme among the club members. Mostly because of the squawking sound it would make when squeezed (and the obvious annoyance it caused many of our club members), a lot of our members began to start worshipping it. She won this rubber chicken during our Halloween shoot, in which she won a prize and got the rubber chicken. She’s actually quite thankful to the rubber chicken, as she states that it helped her to start socializing with the club more.

Francesca isn’t only interested in the archery that SGA offers. For her birthday in 2021, Francesca also began taking classes on Kyudo, traditional Japanese archery. The members of the Kyudo club she took classes from made fun of her for her background in western archery (particularly dropping her bow), as Kyudo bows can be upwards of $2,000.

After graduation, Francesca plans on taking a job on campus and applying to language programs in Japan such as JET. She states that she will definitely continue with archery after college, though the form may change depending on where she goes. For at least a little bit, she will be finding a job around San Diego and plans to continue shooting with the club as a community member. We want to wish Francesca luck with whatever path she chooses to take and know that her positivity will carry her through whatever she faces.

Matt Hashimoto

Matt Hashimoto

Molecular and Cell Biology

Warren College

Senior Nickname: Mommimoto

USA Archery Level 2 Instructor
2019-2022 UCSD Archery Competitive Team Member

Matt’s path through college has been a bumpy one, to say the least. His competitive archery career began in his sophomore year of college when he joined the club and tried to compete with a club genesis bow. After attending 12 qualifiers, at the very last qualifier that would be held, Matt qualified for the team by the skin of his teeth, literally qualifying with the lowest possible score, exactly 200. However, the entire time he was qualifying, he was cracking jokes, laughing (partially at himself), and having fun the entire time.

His college career was also just as rough. Having switched his major (from completely separate departments), applying for the CS lottery, and graduating with 286 credits, Matt worked himself to the bone in order to graduate on time. Juggling working in a lab, getting his school work done, socializing with friends, practicing and competing as an archer, and learning to become a coach ate up almost all of Matt’s free time, but he did it all earnestly with his infectious smile.

The troubles didn’t only come externally, however. Matt also struggled with feeling ready enough to do many of the things we see him doing now. When he was approached to potentially become the next head coach of the archery team, he questioned whether he was prepared enough to give new, incoming archers the same welcoming and fulfilling experiences that hooked him when he first joined SGA. However, in his graduating year, he finally made the decision to become the head coach of the team. He states that although he still believes he has a long way to go as a coach, he hopes that he helped younger archers as much as he learned about being a coach.

Going into the future, Matt hopes to find a job in the biotech industry and hopes to stay in San Diego. He plans to continue to act as the head coach for the foreseeable future and hopes he is able to create a community as welcoming as the one that welcomed him when he first joined. We want to thank Matt for his continued dedication to bettering the club and hope that whatever the future has in store for him, he deals with it all with that infectious smile on his face.

Xianglong Wang

Xianglong Wang

Cognitive Science - specialization in Machine Learning and Neural Computation

roosevelt College

Senior Nickname: Secret Bow Dealer

2021-2022 UCSD Archery Competitive Team Member

Wang is someone driven by the urge to compete. To be able to test his skill and determination against his peers was something he actively sought after. He originally sated his drive to compete through cycling, where he competed for 7 years until it became too stressful for a college student to keep up. Both the physical and mental tax of training and staying motivated became too stressful for Wang to handle. The combination of this and COVID hitting China and stopping the races he could compete in forced Wang to find a new passion. During quarantine, Wang and his friends were hanging out at an Olympic training center, where they had archery classes. On a whim, he and his friends took a class, and Wang fell in love. The coach at the training center saw him and convinced him to keep training.

Once he returned to UCSD, he found SGA, and immediately knew this was where he wanted to be. Archery is a much more “relaxing” sport, not requiring much physical exertion (compared to a sport like cycling). Wang also appreciated the welcoming community the club offered, being able to rely on his friends and peers when he was feeling down or demotivated. Most importantly, however, the club competed. Wang was able to satiate his urge to compete through archery and SGA.

Wang states that his most memorable moment in archery was just getting his own gear. They had equipment for use at the center, but, to him, nothing compares to the feeling of being able to customize your own setup. He loved being able to customize every aspect of his bow, and he hopes that this is something that will encourage more archers to fall in love with the sport just as he did.

After college, Wang plans on attending Johns Hopkins University to study security informatics, network security, and cryptography. He hopes that he will be able to continue his archery career at JHU. We would like to wish him the best of luck in his athletic, academic, and professional career going forward, and hope that SGA has been a stepping stone for whatever path he chooses in his life.

Ethan Tao

Ethan Tao

Computer Science

Warren College

Senior Nickname: Surprisingly Photogenic international man of mystery

2019-2022 Director of IT
2019-2021 UCSD Archery Competitive Team Member

Accolades
2019 West Regional Men’s Recurve Team Bronze

Ethan is kind of a mystery. If you see him off the field or first meet him, he’s pretty quiet, doesn’t talk much, and often keeps to himself. However, when he is on the field, he is one of the most charismatic, interesting, and funny people you can meet. Ethan joined the club his freshman year and has quietly become a core member of the club. Although he didn’t compete in his last year with the club, he continued to come to the field, bringing his positive energy along too.

Ethan first got hooked on the club because of the family system. More specifically, his family went on a trip to Yosemite during his freshman year and this trip became a forming memory of his college life. Being able to get to know the other members of his family on a deeper level made Ethan feel more comfortable and welcome within this community. He states that this experience encouraged him to foster and grow the community that gave him this experience.

Ethan also states that the club has helped him grow as an individual as well. Throughout his college career, he struggled with feeling like he was falling behind his peers. But the club and archery have taught him that everyone progresses at their own pace. “Don’t compare yourself to others, getting to the finish line is the only thing that matters”, is one of the major lessons he has learned during his time with the club.

After college, Ethan has a job lined up as a software engineer and plans to stay in San Diego. He also plans to continue shooting with the club, though only as a community member. We will be waiting for him to return in the next few years with his positivity and wish him the best of luck in whatever path he chooses to walk in his life.

Irene Sha

Irene Sha

Mechanical Engineering

Warren College

Senior Nickname: Supreme Birb Overlord

2019-2022 Social Chair
2019-2021 UCSD Competitive Archery Team Member

Irene is a busy bee. If she’s not working on one of the many social events with the club, she’s in Envision working on a cosplay or a passion project, or managing one of the largest discords in UCSD, or finishing some of the 299 credits that she graduated with. Due to this, Irene has been too busy to spend a lot of time practicing with the team. But that doesn’t mean Irene hasn’t contributed to hosting some of the most memorable and fun events this club has offered in recent years.

Irene was always somewhat interested in archery, so when she saw a full recurve bow on library walk during her freshman year, she was immediately interested in the club. Once she joined, she fell in love with the club’s culture. Being able to improve as an archer surrounded by supportive friends and coaches made Irene feel welcome. Because of this, in her second year, Irene wanted to contribute to the community that made her feel so welcome during her first year, so she ran for social chair.

Once becoming the social chair, Irene’s schedule got more and more packed. Classes got harder, her responsibilities as an officer increased, and other responsibilities kept Irene from continuing her competitive archery career. However, Irene still ran some of the most fun and interactive events SGA has hosted.

After graduation, Irene plans to attend Princeton to pursue a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering. We want to thank Irene for the memories she was able to help create from her events. Although archery may not be in her future, we wish her luck in her academic and professional pursuits and hope that SGA could offer her valuable lessons as she continues on her path.

Jason Sheu

Jason Sheu

Data Science

Warren College

Senior Nickname: Grey Wrangler

2019-2020 Vice President
2020-2021 President
2021-2022 Director of External Affairs
2018-2022 UCSD Archery Competitive Team Member

Accolades
2022 SGA Apollonian Award
NOCC 2022 Men’s Team Recurve Bronze Medal

Jason has been one of our most dedicated members since he came to UCSD in 2018. He became interested in his first year when he saw a flyer for the workshops and joined the club shortly after. He got hooked after the first team class when the club held archery tag, and he began to socialize with other members more. His favorite part of joining SGA at UCSD was all the friends he was able to meet through the club. Some of his closest friends in college were made through SGA, and he states that his college experience would be much different without them supporting him.

Jason competed through all four years of his college career, only really stopping when quarantine forced him to stop. Some of his favorite memories in the club come from competing with his friends and teammates, whether it was getting nearly blown away in the 25 MPH winds at 2019 NOCC, winning bronze at 2022 NOCC, or shooting against an old classmate and olympian Jack Williams at Arizona Cup. He states that some of the most important lessons he learned in life came from his shooting career. Learning to be mindful, staying calm, and most importantly, being able to ask his peers and coaches for assistance when he needs are just some of the lessons he has learned from shooting.

After college, Jason has gotten a job as a data scientist and plans to stay in San Diego as a coach and athlete with the club, hoping to still be able to compete as an athlete in his free time. As a coach, he hopes to help show people the aspects of archery that he fell in love with his first year of college. Since it’s his first year coaching, he hopes to be able to learn to better help club members not only as archers but as students and individuals.

We would like to express our profound gratitude to Jason for his continued service to the club and wish him the best of luck in whatever the future has in store for him.

Michael Yeh

Michael Yeh

Math - Computer Science

Warren College

Senior Nickname: “Average Tea Station Enjoyer”

2019-2022 UCSD Archery Competitive Team Member

Accolades
2022 SIACC Compound Men Qualification Bronze
2022 SIACC Compound Men Gold
2022 Mile Square Cup Compound Men Eliminations Bronze
2022 WROCC Eliminations Compound Men Bronze
2022 WROCC Mixed Team Compound Men Bronze

You could say that archery runs in Michael’s blood. He first got into archery in 2016, when he found out his father used to shoot in high school. Once he found out, he bought a compound bow and started shooting for fun with his dad. After getting accepted into UCSD, he learned about Sun God Archery during the summer of his first year, as he was Facebook friends with the niece of the current team captain. However, it wasn’t until his second year of college that Michael would really dig into the sport of archery.

Once getting into archery, Michael couldn’t stop. By the end of his second year, he had already bought a bow press and his first bale so he could practice at home. This would prove to be a wise investment, as just as he bought his equipment, COVID hit America. As the lockdown shut down the school (and our field practice hours along with it), Michael was practicing in his garage. He says, however, that he wouldn’t have been able to practice as much as he did if the club didn’t push him to be the best archer he could. He states that he was constantly driven by his peers and coaches to strive to be better both on the range and on campus. His favorite memories of the club aren’t any major achievements or events, but simply being able to hang out as friends outside of practice, whether it was going out to eat, grabbing boba, working out together, or playing games.

Michael is thankful to the club in many ways. The club not only helped him find new friends, which is quite difficult as a commuter student but also helped him grow as both an athlete and individual and even landed him his current job at UnitedHealth Group. After college, Michael already has a job lined up and plans to stay in San Diego as the compound coach of the archery team.

We would like to wish him the best of luck in his professional, athletic, and personal life going into the future, and extend our sincerest gratitude for passing down our club’s values as our compound coach.

Chris Lasher

Chris Lasher

Nanoengineering - Bioengineering specialty

Revelle College

Senior Nickname: Dungeon Daddy

2018-2019 Director of IT
2019-2021 Equipment Manager
2017-2021 UCSD Archery Competitive Team Member

Accolades
2018 West Regional Recurve Men’s Team Silver

Before entering college, Chris was your typical nerd-type. He loved DnD, video games, and kept to himself more often than not. Growing up in a “barren wasteland” as he describes, this was all Chris could really do. With 5,000 total residents in his home town of Lakeport, there was barely anything to do as a young, school-aged boy. However, if you have met Chris, on or off the field, he is one of the most charming, funny, and interesting people you will have the pleasure of ever meeting. Whether you’ve been shooting with the club for 4 years or 4 months, Chris will talk with you like he’s known you his entire life. He is nice almost to a fault. So much so that he will almost never say no, meaning his schedule is packed with events for one of the many friend groups that he has built from all of his interests. His friends often joke about having to schedule appointment times to hang out with him.

This just serves as a testament to Chris’s ability to work earnestly towards his goals. Something he states he honed through archery. Coming in to college, Chris knew that he wanted to explore himself and the world much deeper than he had been able while growing up. However, he was also kind of clueless as to where to start. He chose to join the archery club because it was one of the few things that he was familiar with from his home town. He first gained an interest in archery at a young age. As a nerd, Chris loved the Lord of the Rings franchise, so when he saw archery available from his boy scouts, Chris jumped at the opportunity. To his surprise, archery was a sport that Chris was naturally pretty good at. Before this, Chris has always been pretty slow to pick up sports, and health concerns made more physically demanding sports too hard for Chris. Thus, he continued with archery, but could only really shoot at summer camps and boy scouts, as there was no high school team, no real public range, and no JOAD program near him.

Upon joining SGA, Chris knew he had found his spot on campus. Not only did SGA offer Chris a field to pursue archery further than he could when he was at home, it offered a fun and welcoming community and a place that Chris could test his skills against his friends and peers. In only his first year shooting with the club, Chris was already able to begin to break out of his shell. Chris wanted to prove himself as a skilled archer that could compete among the rest of his peers. Not only was he able to do that, he qualified higher than the team captain, surprising both himself and the returning members of the club. Being able to compete with the men’s team at West Regionals in 2018 became a defining memory for Chris’s college life. Shooting with his friends, hearing the rest of the team shout “Gold” as he and his teammates hit the yellow, and surprising his peers as Chris held his own on on the team showed to Chris just how far he was able to come as an archer in a short time.

After graduating, Chris plans to pursue his Masters degree in the accelerated masters program for Nanoengineering. He hopes to find a job in the industry, with a potential option of moving abroad for work. However, for the time being, Chris will continue to shoot with the club as he pursues his masters and searches for his first job. We would like to thank Chris for his dedication in improving the club and hope that he has received just as much as he has given to the club.

Janae Zhang

Janae Zhang

Communication + Cognitive Science

Marshall College

Senior Nickname: Janaenae

USA Archery Level 2 Instructor
Social Chair 2018-2019
President 2019-2020
Director of External Affairs 2020-2021
2019-2021 UCSD Archery Competitive Team Member

Accolades
2021 SGA Apollonian Award

Upon first meeting Janae, she first seems a bit stand-offish. She’s a quite stubborn and often at odds against something, anything. She knows what she wants, and isn’t afraid of irritating others to get what she wants. However, underneath this cold persona she has on the surface, Janae is one of the most passionate members that SGA has seen. If you get to know Janae beyond how she seems at first glance, the amount of energy and passion she can put into things she enjoys is almost endless. Talk to her about archery, arknights, stationery, or tumblr and Janae can talk to you for literal days about how much she knows about each of these subjects.

Her passion for each of these subjects goes further than just being able to talk about them, however. Janae is always at the helm to do whatever project she is working on, whether for the club or a personal passion project. It is this passion that lets Janae thrive as an officer of SGA and an effective instructor. As long as her students are willing to put in the effort to learn about archery, Janae is willing to double that effort and more to teach the kids in the JOAD class, anyone picking up archery for the first time, or returning members that need a bit of help.

Although Janae did not shoot with the competitive team during her last few years, her impact on the team, the club as a whole, and many individual members within the club is undeniable. She was an extremely dedicated worker and her stubbornness served as a boon in Janae’s many efforts in forwarding the interests of the club. Janae’s single-minded dedication to the improvement of the club shined through whether she was teaching her JOAD class, coaching new or returning members on the field, or fulfilling her duties as an officer of three years.

Janae currently does not have specific plans for after college, though she hopes to find a job in graphic design, part of what she studied in college. We would like to thank Janae for her continued contribution to the club, and hope that the club could provide even half of what she gave to the club. We wish her the best of luck going forward in her life and thank her again for all she has done for the club.

Ryan Tran

Ryan Tran

Biochemistry + Chemistry

Sixth College

Senior Nickname: Best Grandpa

2016-2020 UCSD Archery Competitive Team Member

Accolades
2020 SGA Apollonian Award
2019 WROCC Men’s Recurve Team Bronze

Ryan went searching for Sun God Archery after having already shot for a summer. As luck would have it, on the first day of classes he found one of the club’s posters on Argo Hall that advertised workshop times. He attended one of the workshops, and soon after joined the club and team.

During his time on the team, Ryan’s favorite competition was 2020 SIACC, for mixed reasons. For one, during the tournament his extension bar broke, making his stabilizers fly 3 feet in front of the shooting line during practice ends. On a brighter note though, he was able to shoot an OR he was proud of, with two ends of 30 in four ends.

As an avid archer, Ryan has the following piece of advice for those seeking to perform competitively: “the easiest way to get better scores is to have the strength to draw and hold your bow easily. So shoot a lot and/or do a lot of SPT's”.

When he graduates, Ryan will be job-hunting while deciding if he wants to pursue a Master’s degree or a Ph.D.

We wish Ryan the best of luck in his future endeavors, and congratulate him on graduating!

Eric Tian

Eric Tian

Public Health

Revelle College

Senior Nickname: El CapiTian

USA Archery Level 2 Instructor
2019-2020 Team Captain
2018-2020 UCSD Archery Competitive Team Member

Eric’s inspiration to do archery had always been with him when he saw the portrayals of archery within movies such as Lord of The Rings. With this inspiration, he had actually bought a cheap bow at first to just try out the sport but was really engaged with the sport when he discovered SGA at UCSD and all the opportunities that came with it. Like many, he had discovered SGA through their tabling on library walk during welcome week and from there on out it was history.

Eric’s favorite competition memory was Indoor Nationals 2018/2019. At the time, he did not have his own equipment and therefore was using a club bow at the competition. However, upon arriving at the competition, the string on his bow was damaged beyond use and his only option was to use a bow from the Easton Center. However, despite the setback, he ended up competing extremely well with his circumstances and he is proud of what he was able to accomplish given his situation.

Eric’s main piece of advice that he would like to give to incoming archers is to always ask questions and put in the hours. While he says that it may be hard at times to ask for help or questions, it is critical to your success in archery combined with the dedication of hours. Overall, there is a sense of discipline with the practice of archery. Eric’s experience with this need for self-discipline from the use of SPT’s has been his way of strengthening his own self discipline with an understanding of what he needs to improve. Due to this quality that he learned from archery, he now applies his everyday life to this; whether it is academics or his own religion.

Lastly, Eric would like to thank the board for all that they have done and enjoyed working with each and every one of them. They all offered an amazing experience and he would like to thank Nathan Chiu, his fellow captain, for his dedication and everything they have accomplished. He wishes the best of luck to the oncoming board as they navigate through the next season and will definitely visit in the future.