"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world"
is a quote from Nelson Mandela that has a strong impression on me. From the day I realized the power of education, it had always been the first thing that I strive for in life for better future. Korean educational system is known worldwide to be very efficient and the basis for the economic and social development of the country. By applying to GKS scholarship, I will be able to pursue a high-quality education to change the fate of many people, including my self.
Having been born in a small town in a mountainous area named Pho Lu in Lao Cai province, I led a poor life full of hardship from a very young age. As a matter of fact, I received a very low-standard education in elementary school and junior high school. Fortunately, in the summer of 8th grade, I came across the book " I'm gifted, so are you" and it changed me completely. It was at that moment that I realized the power of education, something that I did not take enough care of before. Motivated by the success of the author, I became a whole different person after reading that book. In the entrance exam to high school, everything paid off when I got into the best school in my province, Lao Cai High school for Gifted Students(CLC), a school that I never thought I would be able to get into when I was younger. This was one of my proudest achievements as the school was very selective, only students in the city would get into but I, a boy from a small town could get into was a big achievement for me and my junior high school.
My personality changed profoundly when I entered CLC. Before being a CLCer, I was a rather shy boy who did nothing besides studying. But when I got to CLC, I became more energetic as I joined many clubs at school, such as English and IT club. I also joined in many social activities, one of which was "Social Act", an activity that my class founded to raise funds for students in Muong Khuong, a destitute area in my province. By joining in this activity, I learned to appreciate my life more as most people in this area didn't have things that I took for granted. Most people here did not go to school because of the destitute life that they led. Furthermore, they lacked the basic necessities like food, fresh water, decent house, etc. The minority of young people could go to school but the education quality was bad and some subjects were not taught properly, especially English. Because of the low-quality education they received, students there did not dream to have a better future, they all just wanted to finish school and work as farmer with their parents. Through Social Act, we helped them with food, clothing, etc but it was only a temporary solution. In order to improve the life of destitute people, I knew that I needed to change the education overall.
In the summer of 11th grade, I studied for the SAT test in order to get into college. I took the SAT twice before but got no satisfying result so this time, I decided to work hard for this. The preparation took about a few weeks with little or no big progress but then one day while scrolling in the SAT group on Facebook, I discovered a website called Khan Academy, a game-changing for me! Khan Academy is a website in which they put a lot of useful materials online for students all over the world to study for free. The site was filled with many lessons about almost everything in high school, including the SAT test. Whether you got right or wrong answer, they always provide explanations for every answer choices so that students can fully understand the reading passages or hard math problems. For about a month relentlessly studying the materials, my score was boosted from 1390 to 1550 when taking the practice tests. For just[W11] only a short period of time having full access to high-quality resources, my score increased dramatically without taking online courses which can amount up to a few thousand dollars. Finally, I got 1510/1600 on the SAT, an incredible result for a self-study student like me. Thanks to Khan Academy, I realized that a free online learning website can be very meaningful to poor students like myself. It was at that time that I decided to learn how to code, with the aim that I can create a learning website for students in my province where a good educational system is still largely inaccessible for most students. I then used youtube to learn about the basics of web development and loved it instantly. The fact that I could use a computer to create something that can later be useful to many people excited me. Furthermore, by learning how to code, I constantly put myself in a state of productivity, where I can constantly learn, solve problems and create new things. I also joined in building my English club's website with other students at school, working mostly on the front-end part of the website with a group of 5 other students. Initially, I was shocked because of the difference between youtube tutorial and doing the web on my own. I still remembered spending a whole morning trying to make the website's header without result. I was furious, thinking to myself why coding was so difficult or was I not smart enough. Finally, after many failed attempts, I went to google to find out the solution. Contrary to my previous thought that I was not smart enough, making a header was a piece of cake. The reason that I could not succeed was because I passively learned the tutorials without doing any website for myself. After a google search, I knew how to do the header and actively participated in the process of coding by doing it, thus remembering the process for each steps. Finally, I made a simple, yet beautiful header for the website, which was congratulated by my classmates. Eventhough the website has not been deployed, I am still grateful for this experience. I had so much fun while doing this project as I constantly learned new things like Git, Github, Javascript, etc and I could put it into practice straight away. I also learned a valuable lesson that in order to code better, I need to constantly doing it instead of relying on youtube videos, a realization that can speed up my learning process. I believe that experience really boosted my confidence about my ability and made me more interested in coding itself. After this project, I also do a few website clones like Gmail, Tesla,... that had the same front-end part and had some basic functionalities. In order to create a fully functioned website that can help other people, I know I still have a long path to go but I know that I can do it no matter how hard the future might be. In this day and age when we are on the cusp of computers revolution, it is no doubt that computer science will play a major role in every aspect of society. Especially in education, computers connect students to teachers, improve student performance through fun learning websites like Quizlet, and provide a wide range of resources for self-studying. In the future, computers will play an irreplaceable role in education for the betterment of students and efficiency of learning. Computer Science also pushes me to be better everyday because of its relentless pace of development. I will be put in a state where I have to constantly strive for the better in order to keep up with the world. By challenging myself and providing useful products to education, or the whole society, I will pursue Computer Science in college to fulfill my aspiration.
I am certain that GKS will fully equip me with all the knowledge and skills to make my goal achievable, even more than mere web development. First of all, it offers me the opportunity to get a strong base for Computer Science, which is very important in developing the logical thinking and understanding complex concepts. Korea is well-know for its high standards education with the consistent ranking amongst the top for global education. By studying in this rigorous environment, I will constantly be pushed to strive harder to grow with the pace of other hard-working students. Next, another notable aspect of GKS is its diversity. Top universities in Korea like SNU, KU, and KNU has an outstanding international student body, allowing me to establish a global network that will help me in the future project or career, thus possibly strengthening the relationship between countries when working together in the future. Finally, Korea is a tech-lead country with many well-known companies like Samsung, LG, etc that are making a profound impact in the world. Studying CS in Korea will definitely bring my intellectual potential to the fullest in order to help the world in the future. I believe that, given the chance, an education in Korea will provide me with invaluable experiences for my long-term goal of reducing the gap in education through website service and contributing to the development of the world through many other aspects of CS.