BY JULIA KLEIN ’21
Mount Holyoke News caught up with Langhan Dee, Class of 2004. Dee is being inducted into the Mount Holyoke College Athletics Hall of Fame in 2020 for her success in indoor and outdoor track. During her time at the College, Dee went to nationals for track three separate times, and placed in the top three more than once.
1.What sports did you play at Mount Holyoke?
I played soccer, and then in the winter and spring I did track, indoor and outdoor.
2. What made you decide that Mount Holyoke was the right college for you?
I applied to a lot of different types of schools — large ones, some other small liberal arts and even a couple abroad in Scotland and Montreal. After visiting some, I really loved how friendly the community was, how small it was and that I wouldn’t feel like someone who was just a number at a big huge school.
I was a little bit worried about going to an all-women's college, because in high school there were those groups of girls who were just so cliquey and catty — and I was pretty tired of that — so I was really hesitant to go into an environment that was all women because I thought it would be like that. I was very pleased to find out that it is not like that at all — it’s more of a community, and it’s good for women in science. It was the feel, the campus and also that I was interested in going into math; that was one of my majors.
The places that it has led women, the amount that you can be yourself at an all-women’s college and not be lost by being spoken over by men, or by just being another number at a huge school — everything about it was appealing to me.
3. What was your second major in addition to math?
I started out as a math major from the beginning, and my senior year I decided that if I could take — I think it was three studio art classes — I could turn my art minor into a double major. So I double majored in studio art and mathematics.
4. What were some of your career highlights as a Mount Holyoke athlete?
Most of them were in track — that was my main sport. I qualified for NCAA Nationals for Division III for three different years, indoor and outdoor. I think maybe I qualified five times for nationals; I forget the number of times, but I went to nationals my sophomore year and my senior year. For indoor I placed third and then second in the 400 meter dash at Nationals.
5. What are some of the lessons or skills that you gained through being an athlete at Mount Holyoke?
There are so many. A lot of it is working hard and working with other people. Even though track is an individual sport for most of your races, you’re still working with a team, especially on relays — you just have that bond with the people on your relay. Also, with soccer, you have to be cohesive, get through conflict, work with other people and fit your styles of playing the game or how you work together with other people. There’s also a lot of leadership. I was the captain on the track team a couple of seasons. Even not just being a captain, when you are running out on the track, or in a soccer game, everyone is looking at you. They might not be looking just at you, but the way that you hold yourself taught me to have confidence and show that confidence, whether it was real or not.
I think a lot of people struggle with imposter syndrome, and when you are at a big meet and your competitors are looking at you, you need to hold yourself in ways that will give you confidence so that you can perform how you need to perform. The main things are leadership, working with other people, working hard.
When you are playing a sport and you’re at practice, it’s not always fun, it hurts a lot, but you find that you start to like that pain and the sore muscles. You know that the hard work you are doing is going to make you stronger. I think you can carry that idea into a lot of different parts of life.
6. What do you do for work now?
Right now I lead a client services team at a tech company. We work with private schools across the country. Just like with my majors in college, I had math and I had art and they’re very different interests.
My whole life, I've kind of bounced between or among my really varied interests, and they don’t always point in one direction. Throughout my career, I’ve worked a lot of different types of roles — analytics, client services — and I am still finding my path. Maybe a lot of people when they've been out of school for fifteen years have found their one job, but for me … there are so many different things out there and I’m still finding all of those roles. Each one has a different permutation of my skills and interests. There’s more to come.
7. Do you think your time as a collegiate athlete has prepared you well for this job?
It has prepared me for all of my jobs. A work environment is the same thing as a sport; there’s just so many crossovers. It’s getting along with people, figuring out how you work best, being able to perform when you need to perform, and the importance of just practicing along the way. You’re going to mess up at practice, you’re going to mess up in games, but knowing how to flex and be agile helps to deal with those mistakes and make them into something constructive.
If you miss a ball, how are you going to get back and work with your team to get into a position where you can recover and maybe score a goal? I think in every job the leadership — the way you hold yourself and present yourself, and working with other people — all of that goes right into work life, and other parts of life as well.