Alden’s Story

Coming home after school as a young girl, Alden White said she loved asking her dad, who was an applied mathematics major in college, questions about what she was learning.

“As annoying as it was, I would keep asking questions until I really understood deep down,” she said. “I just loved the process and what it teaches you as a person, by really understanding why things happen.”

This time after school with her and her dad is part of what instilled a love of math in Alden.

“It's not just about what you learn from math as a subject. It’s about pursuing your own innate curiosity and excitement. Math is just one way to get there,” she said. “And also I just kind of love school. It’s something I look forward to.”

By the time she reached her Sophomore year in high school, Alden was ready to pass on her curiosity and excitement for learning with younger students. She joined the RSM Foundation as a volunteer Mentor in the Infinity Squad program. 

“Being excited and curious to learn is not something you can really teach someone, but more something that you can uncover and help bring out by serving as an example,” she said. “I wanted to help other people in the way I’d been helped.” 

At the same time, she was excelling as a competitive swimmer which took up a lot of her time outside of school. Still, she saw how much the students gained by being part of Infinity Squad and wanted to see if there was more she could do to help the program. 

“I'm one of those people that loves to be busy all the time,” she said. “And I think self-initiative is something I really value... I love to try new things to the point of failure and then go back and try again and just keep going.” 

When Alden got a text message from the RSM Foundation’s Executive Director asking if she’d be interested in taking on the new role as Expansion Chair of the Teen Leadership Board, she said she was honored.

“I was like, whoa, I would love to, why not?” she said. “I saw it as something that could definitely help me grow as a person and push me to my limits by trying something completely new.”

In her role as the Teen Leadership Board’s Expansion Chair, Alden has been tasked with helping scale the RSM Foundation’s Infinity Squad program nationally. She said she wants others to experience the unique programming that the RSM Foundation has to offer. 

“The Infinity Squad program is not your average community service program. It's something that really does have the power to excite kids about math,” she said. “Part of it is the nature of the kind of mentors that we attract, they are really a special group of people.”

Being part of a national effort to bring the RSM Foundation programs to more cities and schools has provided a leadership opportunity for Alden that she says she’ll take into college and beyond. 

“I've had various leadership opportunities outside of RSM, but the Teen Leadership Board is something you really can't compare with anything else,” she said. “As high schoolers, because we are so young, we don't have that much agency. But the Teen Leadership Board really has no limit, you have this opportunity to do something completely new and to take it wherever you want.”

Next steps for Alden will be to develop a process for replicating how she has expanded the program into Texas so that she can share what she learned to help scale into more regions across the United States. Her hopes after high school are to find a college where she can do research as well as swim, with the hopes of going into a career in biotechnology eventually.

“This experience is something that I'm going to bring into my collegiate and professional life,” she said. “More than anything, it’s taught me a lot about myself.”