In My Life
Moving away from my parents, when I first entered college brought a drastic change to my life. The freedom I had with my life allowed me to decide how to use my time and make it productive at the same time. In the beginning, it was difficult for me to balance my academic and social life, but I finally realized that I had to be in charge of making my life a successful one instead of my parents. Most freshmen live in the dormitories their first year and find apartments around the campus thereafter. International students have a separate residence hall which allow them to meet others with similar backgrounds.
Academics at UC Berkeley is very challenging and require much time and effort. I spend my weekday nights usually studying at the library with my friends or sit at a coffee shop to study. Sometimes we reserve classrooms in the library to have discussions. Most of the times, all of us sit around at a big table and spend our time reading. During final exams, the library is always packed with students who even bring blankets and stay there overnight. Those are one of the hardest times to find seats because everyone tries to cram their studying into couple of nights-which I can relate to as well.
A big part of my life is devoted to church and campus organization called KASO (Korean American Student Organization). As an officer for KASO, we plan social events and community service events for other Korean American students on campus. It serves as a good opportunity to make new friends and find a family away from home. All of my friends here in California are Korean Americans. It may be because Koreans understand each other better and relate to one another in many ways. On weekends, my friends and I go out to San Francisco often for shopping, dancing, drinking, and other places for fun. I feel very lucky to be so close to a city that provides entertainment and excitement for all of us. We also spend time at the beach playing volleyball and having barbecues. Also, there are a lot of small stores around the campus that show the uniqueness of UC Berkeley-hippy stores, tattoos, piercing, music stores, restaurants, coffee shops, etc.
Trying to balance school and work is a challenging task. I work at a small financial firm as an accounting intern. I try to find part time jobs around the campus for commuting convenience and my job gives me hands on experience of the business world. I’ve also worked at campus stores for a while, but as I got older, I realized that I needed to find a job where I benefit from the experience. Having a part time job may interfere with studying, but time management is a crucial learning process as well. Studying in America can be a precious experience because you can gain a new perspective on various issues and learn through those differences. My life as a Korean American student has helped me grow as an individual and become open to new opportunities.
I hope I’d given you a little taste of what is like to study and live as a Korean American student at UC Berkeley. If you have any questions about my life at Berkeley or any information you’d like to have about Berkeley, please feel free to give me an e-mail. I will sincerely answer all of your e-mails. And I hope you enjoy the rest of students’ essays throughout The UOS times’ further issues.
Kathy Lee
Junior, UC Berkeley
Byul4ever@aol.com
The UOS Times
webmaster@uos.ac.kr