Life is shaped by traveling and people

I like traveling. I love talking with people. They are great sources of countless food for thought and new insights. They allow for correcting unconsciously formed biases and learning new knowledge. These outcomes are hard to be achieved if I were to settle for a comfortable life.   

In an airplane to Korea, instead of minding my own business, I stroke up a conversation with a person sitting next to me. He seemed to be a graduate student returning to Korea after attending a conference in the states. I was right. One objective of my trip to Korea was to do students at my alma mater a service by offering a seminar on the industry R&D and graduate school. To achieve this, I need to understand what current students care about, struggle with, and dream about. I gained new perspectives on the topic from the conversation. I also strengthened my understanding through a dozen of separate talks with professors, students, and friends.
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A professor asked me “I appreciate you take time to visit my office. But this is your vacation. Do you have enough time to do other important things?” I smiled. If I’d put myself in their shoes, I’d have asked the same question. I didn’t have any connection with most of them, but I looked at the faculty list on a school website and reached out to them to set up meetings to hear their whereabouts. What a weirdo. Of course, I didn’t have to meet with them and give a seminar for students. But I believe in the power of conversation and building relationships.

The course of my life has so far been shaped by unexpected interactions with people who have shared information, regardless of their intentions to enlighten me. I bumped into a guy the first summer in college. I was taking over a task from him at a workplace where I did part-time. He briefly shared his story of traveling in Europe. I don’t remember if I found his story very interesting, but a year later, right before joining the Army, I left for Spain and Portugal for 3 weeks. During the military service, I shared a room with a guy who has extensive experience in traveling around the world. We hit it off. He shared lots of amazing travel stories, and this made me want to travel one more time, but this time, a grand trip. After the military service, I had multiple part-time jobs for a year to save enough money for the trip. Also, aside from the time for sleeping and working, I poured myself into teaching myself English to have meaningful conversations with travelers. I wanted to avoid a situation of timidly just visiting tourist attractions like I did in my first trip to Europe. One year later, I left for Europe for 5 months and interacted with hundreds of people from all walks of life. This taught me one thing. The world is wide. There is no clear reason to continue to live where I was born. But I did not know how to realize the vague dream.

The semester I returned to school, a new professor joined my department. He had academic trainings in the states. He offered a class during the first semester, and I happened to be taking it. Every now and then, he shared a story of when he was in the states for a PhD degree and a post-doc opportunity. One day, he mentioned that he was recruiting undergraduate researchers into his new lab. I was not confident because my GPA was bottom 30%. But I decided to give it a try and knocked at his office door. I was accepted, surprisingly. While working with him, I started dreaming of studying in the states for the first time and collecting information about US graduate programs. After accepting an offer to pursue a graduate program in the states, a professor who just joined my department the same semester reached out and asked me to join his lab. He is my PhD advisor. He has immensely impacted my views on research and mentoring.

I was very fortunate to meet all these people throughout my life. I have direct experience of how good people lift oneself up while bad people bring oneself down. I understand the magic of what it can achieve and lead to. This is why I try to go out of my way to meet with people and try to cherish the relationships. I also try to give way what I know to people around me, wishing they benefit from the interaction. During this vacation, lots of people generously took time to meet with me and share their stories. I have gained new knowledge and insights in diverse fields, which I am eager to strengthen and apply to improve myself. I am very curious to know what I would be in 10 years. I am very excited!