Korean students win prestigious scholarship

By Lee Jun-youb

Although Korean students have become ubiquitous at elite universities around the world, they had been precluded from the creme de la creme of academic accomplishment．With the establishment of the Yenching Scholarship at Peking University, however, Korean students have gained an opportunity to win a prestigious scholarship.

Sitting on a cool billion yuan ($160 million) endowment, the Yenching Scholarship has selected its first 100-student class hailing from 35 nations. These inaugural cohorts will live together in what used to be the Imperial Gardens at the heart of China’s first modern national university. The Korea Times spoke to the two Korean winners before they embark on their masters of Chinese studies in September.

Kim Eun-seo

Born in Daejeon, Kim grew up in Seoul, Wisconsin, and London before reading philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford University. She remembers Wisconsin as having “a great atmosphere to grow up as a child thanks to its lush parks.”

She joined the International Relations Society and the Debate Club in college, and also found time to play “janggu” in a traditional Korean percussion band and row competitively.

“You genuinely start to enjoy pain of rowing,” Kim said. “My next ambition is to be able to cox [a boat]. It'd be really fun to yell at really fit guys.”

During her summers, she organized a group of Oxford students to teach English at Jinju, a small town near Busan. She also travelled to Ghana with Global Brigades to work in community microfinance. Her last internship was at an environmental think tank in Oxford, where she conducted statistical research to prevent deforestation and swam in nearby rivers after work.

“I always had the fear of an office environment, but people who work in think tanks are so immersed and enthused about their research,” she said.

Her two rounds of interviews with two Peking University professors and an associate dean encompassed a broad range of topics including the 2014 U.N. climate summit. She was also asked how she would introduce Korea to other international students. She responded: “Our culture comes with not just K-pop and K-dramas. Korea also has a sense of warmth and community spirit.”

Jang Myung-jee

Born and raised in Seoul, Jang studied at Sungkyunkwan University where she majored in economics. She was “showered with utmost love” from her parents, grandmother and aunts who raised her, and cites her high school English teacher mother as her primary role model.

“While the remnants of ancient Korean patriarchal society hold many Korean mothers back from pursuing their career, my mother was courageous,” Jang said.

Jang immersed herself in myriad of extracurricular activities in college, including the Economy Debating Association, Fine Art Club and Youth Ecodemia. Of these, she finds economic tutoring with Ecodemia to be “the most near and dear to my heart.” She teaches economics and finance to around 30 high school students every Saturday, and has also tutored children of North Korean defectors at Gayang Community Center.

“There isn’t greater joy than watching young bright students getting a firmer grip on economics,” Jang said.　“I also provide them with insights on how to triumph through their high school period, an excruciating time for Korean teenagers.

She recalls her interview process as “nerve-racking.”　When asked about her future plans, however, she responded confidently that she aspires to contribute to economic cooperation between Korea and China.

“A couple of days after the interview, I was having dreams about my interview. I tossed and turned and couldn’t soundly sleep,” Jang said. “To my surprise, I got into Yenching Academy. I couldn’t help but wake my parents and tell them the news. It was a pleasant sleepless night for my family.”

In the fall of 2016, these two Korean scholars will be joined in Beijing by not only next year’s Yenching scholars, but also by inaugural Korean Schwarzman scholars. Founded by American billionaire financier Stephen Schwarzman, the Schwarzman Scholarship will compete with Yenching to attract brilliant young minds to Tsinghua University, the alma mater of the past two Chinese presidents.

Lee Jun-youb is a freelance writer based in Stanford, Calif. ― Ed.