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Max Wang ’15
Max Wang ’15, Partner at Stooges Education Group, stands at a formal event, speaking into a microphone while wearing a dark suit.
Max Wang ’15, Partner at Stooges Education Group, stands at a formal event, speaking into a microphone while wearing a dark suit.
I believe that our grandparents were workers so our parents could be doctors so we could be artists.
Max Wang ’15

Philosophy and International Studies Majors
Partner, Stooges Education Group
Higher ed • Entrepreneur • Forensics • International student

I grew up in Beijing and in Vancouver, and came back to China after graduation to start an ethical college-counseling company. There are still a lot of misconceptions in China about how universities work, and most people favor STEM majors because the mentality for generations here was that you should be a cog in the machine. But I believe that our grandparents were engineers or workers so our parents could be doctors so we could be artists. And that’s what Beijing Stooges helps Chinese students understand, as we work with them to apply to top US colleges for undergraduate and graduate programs.

A liberal arts education is still confusing to people in China. During a 2013 summer internship [in China], I told a guy that I was an international studies and philosophy double-major, and he thought I was joking. But I have come to think of the liberal arts bubble—a concept that gets used to suggest that students at places like Macalester know nothing of the real world—as a huge workplace asset. The liberal arts bubble teaches skills you can use anywhere: how to write, speak, argue, present yourself. And it’s a space of empathy, decency, and ethics. Mac is full of people who are doing things not out of self-interest, and that’s just a delight.

Mac showed me what internationalism really means. I had done Model UN in high school and thought that was internationalism—dressing up in a suit and pretending to be a delegate from another country. But at Mac, I found myself reading Milan Kundera, a Czech novelist, and being reminded of growing up in Beijing in the 90s. I became close friends with people whose backgrounds were nothing like mine. Mac opened my eyes in terms of understanding and respecting people who have different cultures, backgrounds, and even biases that are their norms.
Eight years after graduating, the company I started with a little group of guys in an office now has over two hundred employees across nine locations. I’ve started a small AI firm. I’m thinking about my own future and realize that the most important things I learned at Mac, many of them honed in forensics, aren’t tied to a particular industry or occupation but are skillsets that work anywhere.

Last updated: October 2025