20160313_01_Personal Statement

I am Chanhee Lee. My dad named me after a dog named Chan. He was thinking of a name for me and I guess he thought Chan sounded pretty. And since I was a girl, he decided to add a little girlish touch in the end. So that's how I was named as Chanhee. 

Most people find this story behind my name interesting. And I like it too because I get to introduce my name with a little episode attached. But what I like the most about my name is not about how it happened to be my name but its meaning. 

Chanhee means "praising and rejoicing." These two things are what I like to do but at the same time what is hard for me to do. And my name is always a good reminder for me to think about who I am and who I want to be. I want to be someone uplifting and encouraging other people. And I want to be a happy person, someone who can give positive influence on other people. 

That being said, I want to add a little bit more to my background. 

I lived in Japan when I was a baby. I was 5 when I came back to Korea. I don't remember anything about my life in Japan, but it helped me form this multicultural background that I have now. 

When I was 10, I started going to a Christian school. But due to financial difficulty the school closed, and my mom decided to homeschool me and my siblings. (I have an older sister and a younger brother). I was homeschooled for five years and this was one of the most exciting periods of my life. My mom had friends who stepped up to teach me and 4 other homeschoolers. So I was actually very privileged to have teachers who taught me math, Korean history, arts, violin, Chinese, English and et cetera. After 5 years of being homeschooled, my sister went to China to study abroad. My mom brought me and my brother to China after a year. So I got to study at a Canadian school in Dalian, China. And this broadened my perspective and the scope of experience. 

I have never thought I would be majoring in design. When I was a child (before 8), I once thought of becoming a painter. However, that thought died out as I began to have interests in literature and other academic fields especially as I moved into high school. 

Now as I look back, I think I have always had interests in culture in general: I like films; I like learning about media; I like going to exhibitions; I like watching different forms of performing arts including musical, play and recital; I like learning about how the artists came up with their works; I like discovering interesting facts about an art piece. 

It has been an eye-opening experience learning about design at college. And as I learn more here within my major, I think there are so much to learn about the fields of "information design" and "interaction design." So signing up for this course "Interaction Design" was one of the steps I took to expand my understanding of the field that I am majoring in. Listening to the first lecture, I was once again confirmed that this is what I want to learn. And I am excited to learn how to define interaction design and explore different possibilities of creativeness.