Heng Shen never understood why his Chinese immigrant father pushed him so hard to be a good student and have a top-quality character until he got his first job — in a restaurant, just like his father — and traveled to where his father grew up.

Shen’s father grew up in a rural Chinese village with little education and, after immigrating with his parents to Colorado Springs, worked for decades in the family’s Coal Mine Dragon restaurant on South Eighth Street before starting a hydroponics business that failed during the pandemic. Only after experiencing some of what his father did, Shen began to appreciate why his father pushed him so hard to take advantage of the opportunities he had.

Shen said in his application for The Gazette’s Best and Brightest scholarship that his father “was hardworking, a value that I did not appreciate. As I matured, I felt disdain for the person who was so absent in my life yet so stern on my academics and character.” He described his relationship with his father as “very strained, and I even loathed him for putting constant pressure on me with strict demands which I felt were unconstructive and hostile.”

After working at a sushi restaurant on Powers Boulevard in 2021, Shen realized how his father felt working in his family’s restaurant, and a trip last summer to China helped him to realize his father wanted “to make sure I had all the opportunity available to me that he did not have. His expectations and excessive pressure were a means to make me work hard to be able to have opportunities. His impact on my life cannot be understated,” according to the application.

The two experiences changed Shen’s outlook — he didn’t want to waste time or opportunities since he would be the first member of his family to graduate from high school or go to college. Instead of viewing school as something he had to “get through,” he began to take on more hours at work, enroll in more challenging classes, work harder at school and join in more extracurricular activities to make the most of the opportunities he had been given.

That hard work has paid off — he received a Daniels Scholarship covering the full cost of attendance at Colorado School of Mines, where he plans to major in either electrical engineering or computer science, but he also was a National Merit finalist and a Boettcher Scholarship finalist. He eventually wants to work as an engineer on batteries for electric vehicles and later start his own company to advance research and development in the electric vehicle industry.

When not working, studying or in school, Shen volunteers as a tutor for other students at Pine Creek High School as well as serving as service coordinator for ApexSAT, a nonprofit started by one of his classmates to offer free online or in-person tutoring to those taking the SAT college entrance exam. He also leads the calculus division of ApexSAT that offers tutoring for high school students enrolled in advanced placement courses.

Stephanie Cornelio, college career counselor at Pine Creek High School, said in a letter of recommendation that Shen was so dedicated to helping his classmates last fall to fill out college applications and write essays for those applications that he delayed doing his own applications and essays until after he finished helping classmates. That volunteer work came after he had worked a shift at his job and volunteered at ApexSAT.

“Wow! If there is a better example of selfless service, I’m not sure what it is. Heng consistently thinks of others before himself and works to build a strong community,” Cornelio said in her recommendation letter.