Yoo Jin (Grace) Lee
Senior at University of Southern California
Bachelor of Science in Computer Science & Business Administration
ABOUT ME
Hello! My name is Grace Lee, also often called as Eugene (Yoo Jin) by my peers.
I'm a 1.5 generation Korean-American, currently residing in Greater Los Angeles Area.
Currently, I'm finishing up my Bachelor's degree at University of Southern California (USC) in Computer Science and Business Administration.
So what brought me all the way here from Korea to where I am now?
About 15 years ago, my family decided to immigrate to United States with no absolute plans after experiencing few tragedies in Korea.
None of my family members spoke English, including myself. My parents left everything they had in Korea, including their profession, friends, and hard-worked home.
Starting out my new life in United States, I wasn't happy. As a young child, I wanted to be around my friends.
Coming to United States was out of my will and without a proper immigration, I experienced numerous restrictions in living the "normal" life.
My parents weren't able to work in proper environment and received mistreatments for their lack of legal status.
During my senior year in high school - I lost myself. After building my grades and extracurricular activities,
I was denied by more than 90% of universities that I was accepted into, because I am undocumented and did not have
$60,000 in my bank account to pay up the "International Student" tuition. I had to resort to going to a community college around my high school.
While I continued my eduation for transfer at a community college, taking classes all-year around of 45 units, I also began to work
part-time at restaurants nearly 30 hours each week to support my tuition in the future.
Just around a year after I graduated from high school, I applied to USC and was accepted with a full tuition.
Frankly, USC was never my first-choice school since high school. I really applied to USC because private colleges accepted transfers after first-year,
and I really just wanted to get out of the situation I was in - but it turned out to be one of the best decision I have made by far.
Not only were my parents free of financial distress (at least from mine), I also found the exact major that I wanted to bulid a career in.
USC was one of the few schools that offered both Computer Science and Business Administration together in a dual degree program.
Looking back, even though I did not appreciate the situation I was in at the time,
it truly made a character out of me - allowing me to become more adaptable, sociable, hard-working, and mature.
Throughout those years, I have been surrounded by great faculty members and friends on-campus and off-campus.
They are the supporting beams of my life and how I endured such busy, hectic schedule.
I spent a wonderful 3 years at USC, and with just one semester left till graduation, I am ready to move onto the next chapter of my life.
