On February 11, 2017, I had the opportunity to interview Jenny Choe, a second-year sociology student here at UC Irvine aspiring to be a social worker. She completed her schooling in Seoul, Korea at a military base. Jenny shares her experience as the first one in her family to attend a four-year university.
Here is a picture taken by Jenny of the baseball stadium in her hometown, Seoul.
What are some hobbies of yours?
When I was in Korea, I would always like to go out with my friends, we ride the subways, we go to shopping malls but now in college because I’m not that social and I get really tired so I like to stay in my room just watch TV shows, or I do my homework at home instead of going to the library. Because you can’t really concentrate, or I’m not in my environment. So, yeah, I usually just stay home if I’m not in school.
What was your favorite subject in high school?
I liked journalism because I knew the teacher he was my AP English teacher. And then, I took the class with my three best friends. We all signed up to take it. And, I liked it because it was really free, like the teacher wasn’t really strict as to what we should talk about. And we would go out into the city of Seoul and do interviews of issues, or we would do something like what you should do in the city? Recommendations of where to go. So, writing an article was homework but we would still hang out with friends while doing homework.
And, did your teachers in high school prepare you well enough for college?
Yeah, I think yeah, they really encouraged us to do different kinds of extracurricular activities. Our teachers made their own class such as a volunteering class and they like helped us find volunteer activities outside of the base. Before, I volunteered at the Korean hospital during Christmas season and we went there and we did decorations at the hospital for little kids who are in bed. And, inside the base some volunteer activities we did was decorating the hotel like for Christmas decorating, and like cleaning up, helping out. So, we did a lot of volunteer activities.
Did you do a volunteering activity that was not seasonal?
Yeah, for my group our sponsor found, actually, two, three consistent activities it was through a soup kitchen and going to the juvenile, like a teenage juvenile to teach English and another one was to go to the disability house with kids and adults with disabilities.
And, how did that impact your life?
Well, while volunteering for like different activities it kind of helped me see the life of how I live and of how other people live are really different and that shaped me in wanting to become a social worker and major in sociology. I worked at a soup kitchen and one of the homeless people asked for a side dish, like, a vegetable side dish. But, I misheard it as a meat and accidentally gave him the wrong dish and they got really mad at me. And thinking, looking at that situation back now, I was really scared at that time. But, thinking now majoring in sociology I’m trying to think of ways to help those people and how to help them in that situation I would better understand as a sociology major now then back then.
How did you spend your last couple of months in Korea before coming here your first year?
Well, I visited all my family members like I met them since we all live far from each other. Like my grandmother from my mom side they live in the country area so it was like a two-hour drive. I had to go with my mom because my dad works a lot the weekdays but my mom has Sunday off so when we would go she would drive. I would go with my sister and some of my aunts together. We visit them and talk. They would ask me questions about college and all that stuff. I went on trips with my cousins because we are kind of like the same age so we went to like waterparks over the summer. And, I went out with a lot of my friends. We went on trips to the river and stuff to the countryside. Some of my friends have their driver’s license so they would drive us around. Yeah, I really enjoyed it. I’ve never been out that much!
What advice would you give to a high school student that feels confused or that thinks college is not for me?
I think first of all make sure to think about what they want to do. Like they should picture themselves ten years later and see what they want to do.These days in society if you don’t go to college people don’t really think of you highly. So, I think you at least need to graduate from a four-year college to feel respect I guess from other people. Also, have connections with other people so it’s not only a benefit for them but it also helps them sustain their own life which will help future generations.
**Many students here at UCI are first-generation college students (FGCS). I, who is also a FGCS, found this interview to be eye-opening because many of us go through many obstacles in college. But, we need to listen to those stories around us. Students,like Jenny, travel overseas, or across the country in order to pursue their education have to make so many sacrifices.