Lucy Li

“I've been playing golf since I was, like, seven or eight, so that's always been my dream and passion,” begins professional golfer Lucy Li (BAAS ’25). When she chose to go pro in 2019, at 17, she was also choosing to forgo the traditional path to college. Her commitment to education, however, drove her to seek an academic opportunity that would fit into her burgeoning and demanding career. The Bachelor of Applied Arts and Sciences (BAAS) program at Penn LPS Online allowed Lucy to balance her love of learning with her commitments on the course.

Lucy could have delayed her decision to go pro. Mentors cautioned her not to neglect her other talents by turning professional so early. And there were plenty of college recruiters knocking on her door. “I knew that it wasn't the best fit for me,” Lucy explains. “I really wanted to forge my own path, and it can be difficult to be very independent when you're in a college golf program.”

“Knowing that I was able to have a successful career at Penn and in golf at the same time just gives me a lot of confidence going into the future.”

Instead, she searched for a degree option that would work for her and her career choice. “Education is very important in my family, and I love learning, so even though I knew I wasn't going to go down the traditional route of playing college golf, I knew that I still really wanted to get a degree from a good college.” 

When she found the BAAS program at Penn, with help from her mother, it felt like the right fit. “Obviously, being Ivy League is a plus,” she says. And the program’s flexibility and online delivery opened up options for managing study around her golf schedule. “I also thought the [applied] positive psychology program at Penn was really interesting and useful to my career. It’s a very unique program to Penn,” she says.

Lucy applied to the BAAS through the Gateway Program, taking several foundational courses from the curriculum before formally enrolling as a degree student. “I think that’s a really unique part of the program, the ‘Prove Your Way In’ path. It was a bit less traditional, but easier for my career, going that way,” she says. “And being able to get a taste of the program before having to fully commit was nice. I took a few classes and I really enjoyed it.”

For her degree concentration, Lucy chose Data Analytics and Psychological Sciences, which pairs the program’s applied positive psychology (APOP) courses with a second interest of Lucy’s. “I definitely wanted to do something in the STEM area. Data analytics is very useful and broad,” she says, noting its many applications in the tech industry. “When I saw that combined degree concentration, I thought it was really interesting.”

Lucy also enjoyed the breadth of other subjects that the liberal arts program offered. “I loved my climate change classes, my ethics classes, and just being able to broaden my horizons learning about all sorts of stuff that you wouldn't learn about otherwise,” she says. (It’s no surprise that Lucy’s top two character strengths, which she identified and studied in her APOP classes, are curiosity and love of learning.)

“Everything was really, really well integrated. I think this program is ahead of its time.”

To fit college study into her career, Lucy’s degree program needed to be flexible. “Our schedule is pretty crazy during the season,” she shares. “I play probably 26, 27 events every year, and each tournament is, like, a full week.” Between practice rounds and tournament play, then travel to the next event—which can take her across the globe—Lucy has little downtime. “I probably spend 30 to 32 weeks on the road a year,” she says. And during the two or three months she’s at home in California for the off-season, she’s still in training. “At that time, you’re practicing six, eight hours a day. And then you're also going to the gym and all of these things.”

The BAAS program’s accelerated 8-week terms, however, facilitated finding space for classes. “If you really wanted to move fast in a short period of time, you could. And I usually would do that in late fall, early spring, get a lot of my classes in,” she says. When the sun went down on the golf course in California, it was time for homework. “I’d get home at 5 p.m. and do my work until nighttime.” Then, during the season, Lucy would take just one or two classes at a time, and even take a term off during summer or early fall when she needed to.

For Lucy, the online student experience was exceptional. “Everything was really, really well integrated. I think this program is ahead of its time,” she says. Her endorsement of the BAAS web-based course delivery carries a lot of weight. “I've been doing online schooling for a long time. I stopped going to traditional school when I was maybe like 10 or 11, so that’s sort of all I’ve known,” she says. She even has experience taking online, non-credit courses at other top universities, and Penn LPS Online’s course delivery on Canvas stands above the rest. “I found that Penn was set up to be the easiest to navigate, for sure,” she insists. “The complete integration of fully online classes, the lectures, and the live classes, just everything is so perfectly set up. I found there were almost no sticking points.” Occasionally, a live lecture might conflict with her tournament schedule, she explains, but she was able to contact her instructors ahead of time to work out a solution when needed.

She felt that level of support throughout the program. “What's really impressive is how responsive everyone is,” she shares about her instructors. “If you have a question or some sort of concern, the response is always within a day, so that was really helpful.”

While balancing school and golf had its challenges, there was value in her dual commitment, too. Lucy found that one responsibility could serve as a needed respite from the other and help her maintain her well-being.

“The transition from amateur golf to professional golf can be very difficult,” she says. “There's always transitions in life, and that's something that you learn as you go through it, but when I was struggling mentally with the golf stuff, being able to have something else to do—and not just sit there and think about golf all day—was definitely a great outlet.”

She also confirmed that her APOP coursework applies directly to her sport, which demands confidence and a growth mindset. “I think the APOP classes did help a lot with my golf,” she says, noting that current sports psychology fundamentals are based on the work of Penn’s Dr. Martin Seligman, co-founder of the field of positive psychology. “A lot of the books and readings and lessons from those classes definitely translated a lot to the psychology behind golf.”

Even in the online classroom environment, Lucy felt a communal spirit throughout the program. The APOP online discussions in particular, she says, develop camaraderie among students. “You have your group, and you discuss your experiences and learning inside that group, so you get to know those people really well.” One fellow APOP student came to see Lucy compete in a tournament in Canada. She also met students across the program who, like her, were professional athletes or dancers. And Lucy had the chance to meet a handful of her Penn friends in person when she attended graduation in Philadelphia last spring. They still keep in touch.

“It's just really cool to see people from different walks of life,” she says, which included domestic and international students, and students of various ages with different experiences and goals. “There's also people who just take certificates in a topic because they want to improve their careers—I always found that really inspiring.”

In the culminating course of the BAAS degree, The Art of Work, where students reflect on their academic journey, Lucy had the chance to step back and be self-inspired. “I was really impressed with the amount and quality of work that I had done throughout the years,” she says, “I was really proud of myself.”

Lucy graduated in spring 2025 and walked with her class in May. She says she’s glad she enrolled in the degree program when she did and seized the opportunity to nurture that creative and curious side of herself. “Knowing that I was able to have a successful career at Penn and in golf at the same time just gives me a lot of confidence going into the future.”

She’s already considering what her academic future might hold. “Now sometimes I'm like, what do I do with my time?” she laughs. “I’m trying to find my next path forward. I’m going to take a little bit of time off from education, but I might want to get a master’s degree, maybe an MBA, someday.”

For now, the pro golfer is happy to encourage others to check out Penn LPS Online. “People who want that traditional college experience, that's great for them and they should go for it,” she says. “For anyone thinking about going down a different path, I always tell them this is a really great option.” Even on the golf course, she advocates for the program. “I carry the Penn LPS Online logo on my golf bag,” she says, which sparks a lot of conversations. “I think it's such an amazing program, I want more people to know about it.”