However, there have been difficult times throughout my journey in becoming part of the Columbia community.
When I first got here in the states, everything was just new to me and I only hung out with Korean, but I was still homesick and lonely. 6 months after, I decided to move back to Korea, and I planned a trip to NewYork before leaving for the last time. During the trip, I met Eric through a friend, and we soon became close friends. One night when we were out, I was talking to him about my situation, and he suggested me to visit his office one day. The next day, I visited him at the Uniprep where he told me about my options and strongly suggested me to attend the bridge school.
With a careful consideration, I at the end decided to give one more chance to myself and go to the bridge school.
Because of the short amount of time that I had to prepare an application, I was very nervous. However, there were people from the Uniprep who were my second family and cheered me up every day by telling me not to worry so much. After a while, I received the acceptance letter from Bridge school with the scholarship letter. Eric was at there the moment when I got the letter, and he was even happier than I was for me.
During college years, I got a lot of help from tutors at the Uniprep which led me into achieving good grades in classes. Ultimately, I started being interested in studying more and more and decided to continue my education and applied to universities.
While preparing essays and application forms for universities, counselors from the Uniprep were very helpful, and I was able to again share another great news with them, getting into Columbia University.
I truly thank every single person at the Uniprep, especially Eric who has been only good to me.
I am very proud of myself and I cannot wait to start my semester at Columbia.