Undergraduate / Design cultures - The Global UGRAD Program is for young leaders [2]

The Global UGRAD Program is for young leaders committed to serving their home communities.

Why would you be a great participant in the Global UGRAD Program?

Here in Korea, the meaning of the name is considered to influence one's life so people name their baby based on yin and yang theory rooted in Asian philosophy. My name 'Hyunseo' means 'spread the light', composed by my grandfather to light up this world. Like sunlight could permeate into everything and brighten them, I am an artist and a writer who wants to share joy and hope with other people throughout the pursuit of strong enthusiasm for my career.

Majoring in such a practical field, Design not only has taught me the knowledge and artistic ability but also gave me the genuine attitude toward life, to make accomplishments through continuous efforts and repetition. Leading several branding project teams I learned to cooperate while respecting each other's independent artistic views and successfully led us to participate in school exhibitions and excellent grades. In that process, I gained interest to participate in broader aspects of the culture industry, to organize and analyze with thorough contemplations. Soon I worked as an intern at the pop culture magazine 'Star in News', learned how to write articles and deliver messages effectively in public.

Based on my achievements as a designer and interests in journalism, I earned a chance to start an internship at TV CHOSUN, a network owned by the biggest newspaper group in Korea. I was deeply inspired by how so many people were working for a piece of television news, and the impacts it had. News media were the place for debates and raising social waves with powerful messages. Participating in the team boiled my blood with passion. I realized the importance of righteous and fair media, determined to exercise journalistic leverage in Korean culture scenes in the future.

I am very delighted for the recent worldwide interest in Korean culture and its rapid evolution but our country needs to try harder to provide better infrastructures and mediums. Major broadcasts behave as other things always matter more and there is less room for constructive discussions and embracements of diversity and awareness in culture scenes, even at the production phase. I foresee its breakdown by the voices of the future generation and I ought to make a content platform where everybody could gain access to cultural experiences and share healthy opinions, free from restrictive and manipulative algorithms. Therefore, I hope to acquire the spirits of freedom and diversity from the country of freedom and opportunity. For the goal of making a leading digital media company, I seek to study science in information networking for a master's degree and I hope my experience at the UGRAD exchange program could guide me to the chance for the Fulbright scholarship later on. I also wish to face the challenges and adapt to the lifestyle of a college student in the U.S beforehand.

Culture is an absolute factor that enriches human life and is a major virtue and the finest value a country could obtain. America is the center of modern heritage and will be the homeland of countless works of Art hereafter. I desire to take this program as an opportunity to stay together with people who are embodied to treasure and progress the cultural industry. Taking the honor to meet and learn from great scholars and experts in the field is very valuable for me to step into my career at the universal phase, also improving my English skills. If my will for shared reality, to make a blissful world of culture for humanity meets the purpose of the UGRAD program, you will never regret choosing me as one of your participants.

This is my first draft, any opinions are welcomed.

Undergraduate / UGRAD - 'Who would be born must first destroy the world.' - LEADERSHIP APPROACH [2]

Everyone's approach to leadership is different.
How would you describe your personal leadership style? What values do you consider the most important when leading others? How do you inspire and influence others to get behind your vision?

I am having a hard time writing this essay. I have so much info I want to put in this writing but I don't know how to organize them. Also, I'm worried that I'm mentioning too much about the person I invited, in writing about my efforts.

'The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Who would be born must first destroy the world.' The quote from Demian by Hermann Hesse directs the goal of my life. The 'egg' is a comfy place. However, if you do not endeavor to hatch from the egg, the shell will be cracked by external forces very soon. When the team has its goal ahead and things are stuck, as a driven leader I try to move on to the way no one has ever gone before.

During my internship, I participated as a staff for the conference called 'AAA Forum' hosted by the news network, where experts and politicians from all around the world gather and discuss Korea's future policies. Due to the pandemic, speakers we wanted to invite were reluctant to travel abroad and every condition was very uncertain to host an international event. Also, even when speakers agreed to come we were receiving declines from the upper management and were exhausted to proceed with any fresh good ideas. I assumed our event would not get any better in the current condition and seized to act more actively towards our purpose. To conclude, I managed to invite two speakers from US and England, first-ever as an intern. One of them was AAA, an American climate justice activist currently serving on the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council as the AAA

I first started off analyzing every session in detail and pointed out the problem that all the speakers in the environmental debate session were composed of similar expertise and generation, which was not appropriate for constructive discussions. Then I undertook researches on environment-related industries and young activists who are leading this world towards change. Among them, I contacted AAA. With the inauguration of the new government and their freshly organized climate policies, I expected America's active climate movements would cross all over the world in multilateral perspectives of global issues. Also, Korea's presidential candidates were participating in the conference and I wished to raise their awareness since none of them seemed to be interested in climate issues. Mentioning these reasons I continuously persuaded AAA in earnest for a month, and he finally accepted to come to Korea.

Then I visited our executive team office and asserted that future generations should not be excluded and that we need a person from worldwide perspectives since environmental issues are not confined to one certain country. After days of persuasion, the team accepted my idea and I could finally invite AAA over. He was one of the most enthusiastically responded speakers of the year and I also worked as an interpreter for his two exclusive news interviews in Korea. I found the interview very meaningful to encourage young Korean activists, who are not yet appreciated for their efforts.

A great leader should also know how to organize every person's talents to make a great harmony in teamwork. My fellows willingly supported my ideas and we could efficiently work on following procedures after. To build healthy cooperation, I believe a leader should be qualified in her prudence. Not rushing nor acting dogmatically, I studied and worked harder suggesting multiple options to change the situation. Being a self-starter, I reasoned our team into compliance.

Undergraduate / Application for UGRAD - What hobbies and interests do you enjoy / design and movies [2]

I answered this question honestly, and I'm worried it would seem kind of immature and inappropriate.
Also for questions like this with no limitations in word counts, is it better to answer them as long as possible?

What hobbies and interests do you enjoy?

My first interest in popular culture and attempt to major in design started from movies. As a child, my parents were very busy and a movie night at the local cinema once in a while was our only leisure activity. However, it was joyful to experience different stories and cultures of the world from the screen and it made me dream about foreign countries and their composite art. I also started to learn English since then.

Blockbusters are my all-time childhood nostalgia, and I often visit small cinemas far away for independent films. I look for lots of movies from the '80s when massive film productions started to appear, with fewer computer graphic effects. Also, my great interest is in horror movies. It is incredible to think of clever ideas and compose scenes to provoke people's primitive emotions.

Recently I started to write film reviews at my notion account. Through interpretation in their social context, it helps me to fully understand the film and find more interesting portions out of it.

My other hobby is ballet, I started it to cure my text neck posture and it has been my big pleasure since then. It was great to strengthen muscles that are not used ordinarily and helped me to stay physically fit. Focusing on dance movements and expressions while exercising will never get me bored in doing ballet. Improving basic skills I will be preparing for an amateur competition this year.