Undergraduate / "we will be the best of friends" - Dear roommate stanford [3]

[b]Virtually all of Stanford's undergraduates live on campus. Write a note to your future roommate that reveals something about you or that will help your roommate - and us - know you better.

Dear roommate

I want to first tell you what I found out about myself just a few days ago-that I am funny. I knew when I say something, people around me laugh, but until now, I couldn't link those two dots then that they were laughing because of me.

So I analyzed for a while what can possibly make me a funny person. I feel uncomfortable to be in a situation where the atmosphere is filled with awkwardness, depression, and hostility. So I think when I get into this kind of situation, my defense mechanism of playing the clown kicks in and somehow make a statement that lightens the mood. Maybe to my friends, my defense mechanism might have been seen as funny. I learned to control my mechanism and become a good listener when my friends want me to that I think now everyone consider me as one of the most comfortable guy to talk to in my school.

I believe that laughter is one of the most important things that bonds friendships stronger. Something that worries me is that you won't be able to find me funny because a lot of laughter comes from you understanding the cultural context in which I am creating the joke out of. But I think trying to make you laugh will be a great opportunity for me to get to know you better and in this process we will be able become friends who knows each other the best. And finally, when I make you laugh and you make me laugh, I believe we will be the best of friends.

Undergraduate / "freedom to make mistake" "another field of academics" Brown supplements [4]

Please tell us more about your interest in Brown: Why does Brown appeal to you as a college option? Who or what has influenced your decision to apply?[/i]

In my freshman year, I made a mistake in registering for psychology class only to find this subject is truly contrary to my academic interest. But this mistake made me to get some kind of sense where my academic interest lies. The fact that I have a freedom to make mistake is what attracts me to Brown the most. Brown is known for its liberal education and in this academic environment, through holistically exploring my academic interests and facing some consequences for that, I will be able to grow into a person who genuinely knows how to actively lead not only my academic path but also career path after graduation. Furthermore, Brown provides me the environment that suits my current academic interest in Asian studies. I want to understand the unique characteristic of the region and people of Asia in an environment where I'll be able to zoom out from my Korean background and objectively examine the complex relationships among countries in Asia.

Why are you drawn to the academic fields you indicated in the Anticipated Degree and Academic Interest questions above?[i]

At first, I aspired to study in Korea Development Institute because I wanted to deepen my understanding in economics. But as I spent times there and studied Korea's economic development methods, my interest widened to another field of academics: Asian studies. Economic policies certainly played their part, but I learned to find out that the factors that contributed more than pure economics to Korea's development was the ethnic characteristic like inherited spirit of cooperation and selflessness that all Koreans share. What was even more surprising was that Asian countries like Japan and Taiwan that had gone through similar development shared the similar characteristics such as the Confucian's philosophy in work ethics and even the anthropological nature of Mongoloid. From this experience, I found out that my academic interest lies in analyzing this intricate web of relationships among ethnic groups in Asia from social, cultural, religious, and anthropological aspects.