In this blog post, I will summarize what I learned through my academic efforts, school activities, and collaborative experiences during high school, as well as my motivation for applying and my career preparation process.
Academic Experiences and Reflections
During high school, I studied three languages simultaneously: English, French, and German. I chose to study all three languages simultaneously because I wanted to develop international competitiveness and believed that language proficiency would be a significant asset when I studied law in the future. For English, I focused on reading comprehension and grammar, staying true to the material covered in class, with the goal of achieving consistent scores on the College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) practice exams. Thanks to my study abroad experience in middle school, I was confident in my conversational skills, and that confidence led to good results in performance-based assessments.
I devoted even more effort to the other two languages. For German, I focused on vocabulary and listening comprehension with the goal of obtaining a certification, and I studied hard enough to earn a Grade 1 on the second foreign language exam. For French, I focused primarily on conversation; to develop practical skills, I advanced through the levels at a language institute and intensively practiced practical conversation. A key distinction was that I took a test-prep approach with German, while adopting a practical conversation-focused approach with French.
The fundamental reason I undertook this language learning was tied to my career plan to major in law. I had been advised that studying various languages would be essential once I entered college, and I believed I needed not only to be fluent in English—to the point of using it like a native speaker—but also to be able to utilize several other foreign languages. I enjoyed learning new languages, and I found it particularly interesting to compare and study different languages simultaneously; as a result, by my senior year of high school, I had achieved a high level of proficiency and earned certifications in both French and German.
Major School Activities and Reflections
There weren’t many institutional resources at my high school to prepare for a career in law. To study with friends who shared the same goal, I took the initiative to start a law research club. I ran the club as an open group, welcoming not only students preparing to major in law but also those interested in law and politics, as well as students seeking practical legal knowledge.
After creating promotional materials to recruit a diverse group of students, we attracted a variety of members, including curious students inspired by TV shows about law firms, students interested in human rights, and students eager to learn about the fundamental rights of youth. Based on our shared interest in law, we democratically decided on the club’s activity plan, meeting schedule, and rules through general meetings. We held regular meetings twice a week and, by majority vote, chose days that were convenient for most members, dividing into a Wednesday team and a Friday team to carry out team-based activities.
The Wednesday team focused on practical legal issues such as economics, healthcare, and constitutional law. We studied economic law—including the Fair Trade Act, the Labeling and Advertising Act, the Electronic Commerce Act, merger control, cartels, and conglomerate regulation—as well as medical and pharmaceutical law, covering medical litigation, pharmaceutical litigation, the National Health Insurance Act, drug-related regulations, and the biotechnology and chemical sectors. We clipped relevant news articles and held discussions. Going beyond simply accumulating knowledge, we honed our practical skills by debating current affairs and conducting mock trials.
The Friday team focused on activities aimed at applying the legal knowledge we had learned to real-world situations. Centered on human rights law, we participated in roundtable discussions with workers who had suffered industrial accidents and took part in events addressing the Employment Permit System for migrant residents and issues facing migrant children. We focused intensively on four groups—marriage migrants, refugees, North Korean defectors, and migrant workers—to identify ways we could help advance their rights. We also engaged in rewarding activities, such as developing educational materials to improve the fundamental rights of adolescents, distributing them to schools, and formulating strategies to advocate for youth human rights and entitlements.
Examples of Compassion, Sharing, and Cooperation, and My Reflections
While running the law club, I began legal writing activities with an eye toward essay exams starting in my sophomore year of high school. Until then, our activities had mainly consisted of legal knowledge study groups, current affairs debates, and external campaign activities, but I decided it would be meaningful to also engage in activities that would directly help with college admissions. The legal writing activities involved collecting legal passages or articles, discussing them, organizing our individual opinions, and writing essays.
After writing, we revised our work on our own and then shared it with classmates for a second round of revisions through peer review. Through this process of sharing and evaluation, we were able to identify and address weaknesses in our arguments as well as assess the validity and reliability of our evidence. However, finding suitable passages was not easy. This was because it was difficult to decide which news articles or issues to use as source material.
After much discussion, we decided to use the latest Constitutional Court precedents as our source material and collected data by searching for these precedents on the Court’s website. By repeating the process of drafting essays after brief discussions, we primarily addressed issues related to internet copyright law and online defamation. Given the nature of South Korea’s active online environment, legal issues in this field frequently arose. We organized our opinions from a youth perspective to write our essays, exchanged feedback with one another, and ultimately published the selected editorial in the school newspaper, where it received positive reviews.
Efforts and Preparation Related to Motivation for Application and Career Plans
I spent my high school years aiming to enter a law school and made various preparations toward that goal. Both language learning and running a law club were part of my career preparation. I took on a leadership role by founding and managing the law club myself, and I worked to develop my legal reasoning and writing skills through practical activities such as mock trials, debates, and essay writing practice. Furthermore, I believe that my experience studying multiple languages simultaneously and obtaining certifications will help me develop the broad communication skills and access to resources required in the legal profession in the long term.
“Then It’s Normal,” by Ha Ji-hyun — This book provided great comfort and practical advice to me, who had been pushing myself too hard due to excessive perfectionism. Written by a psychiatrist, this book reassures readers that the anxiety and obsessive tendencies caused by our society’s high standards “are not particularly unusual,” teaching us how to be a little more forgiving of ourselves. After reading this book, I was able to ease my obsession with perfection and continue my studies and leadership roles with a more stable mindset.
Unfurl the Sails of Your Dreams, by Yoon Tae-geun — The author shares his experiences sailing around islands and across the globe through his work as a yacht delivery captain. His story of sailing solo through 28 countries over 20 months, along with his advice to “let go of yourself and gain the freedom to be your true self,” resonated deeply with me. Since I genuinely enjoyed studying law and analyzing case law, I resonated with the author’s suggestion that it’s worth studying even when the reason for one’s passion isn’t entirely clear, and it reminded me to prioritize the earnest desire to pursue the studies I truly want over external prestige.
Dictionary of Everyday Legal Knowledge, Kim Yong-guk — I stumbled upon this book at the National Library of Korea, and it provided practical and detailed legal knowledge. The author’s career and attitude helped me learn the spirit of self-criticism and meticulousness required in the legal profession, and reinforced the attitude I developed while analyzing case law—one that considers the systematic nature and loopholes of the law, as well as the need for prudence in rulings. This book served as a catalyst for me to make a concrete commitment to becoming the meticulous legal professional I aspire to be.
