In this blog post, I will summarize what I learned and felt through the academic efforts I made, as well as my school activities and collaborative experiences, during my time in high school.

Academic Efforts and Learning Experiences

I wanted to study harder than ever before, but when my results didn’t match my efforts, I began to think, “Since my grades aren’t improving anyway, I might as well try every possible method.” I tried every study method my friends used—from cram schools and private tutoring to online lectures and study groups—in an effort to find the approach that worked best for me. Throughout the first semester, I tried various study methods—which might have looked like I was floundering to others—and among them, I found a method I could do without feeling burdened and actually enjoy. Of all the options, the method that worked best for me was “self-study: summarizing material on my own and studying by watching lectures by myself.” Since competition itself felt like a huge burden to me, studying with friends or trying to meet others’ expectations while being taught by someone else didn’t suit me well. So, I stopped all private tutoring and cram school classes and decided to focus solely on EBS lectures and my regular school classes. Putting this into practice was much harder than I expected. I had previously relied solely on cram schools and private tutors, so I didn’t fully concentrate during my teacher’s lectures, and since watching lectures was a solo battle, it was difficult to stick to this routine. So, I adjusted my lecture-watching schedule in my own way. I developed the habit of focusing without fail during class, and I structured my lecture listening schedule exactly like my class schedule—including a 10-minute break—to help my body adjust to a consistent study routine. Since studying on my own can easily lead to slacking off, I made sure to strictly adhere to my “schedule.” As I studied while sticking to this schedule, my grades gradually improved. I believe the secret to improving my grades was “keeping my time commitments.” Studying is a promise you make to yourself. To keep that promise, I made the most of my time, and I believe my grades improved as a reward for keeping that commitment. This study habit also instilled in me a mindset of keeping promises I make to myself in areas beyond just studying.

Meaningful School Activities

Creating the Classroom That Makes You Most Want to Study

Every year, our school held an event to select the most eye-catching classroom. It was an event where homeroom teachers and students decorated their classrooms together, aimed at lightening the otherwise stiff atmosphere of studying. Since the prize money and benefits were better than expected, many teachers and students came up with ideas and decorated their classrooms each year to be selected as the best-decorated class. Since I had narrowly missed first place and finished second in my first year, I was determined to make our class win first place in my second year. Having enjoyed decorating my own room since I was young, I put my natural talent to use, coming up with ideas for classroom decoration and putting them into practice. I placed particular importance on color. I realized that selecting just one or two accent colors and using them consistently would create a sense of unity in the classroom and make it look brighter and more vibrant. Rather than using a haphazard mix of colors, I decided to stick to just two accent colors, so I conducted a survey among my classmates to select the two most popular colors. Those colors turned out to be light pink and a light lavender-blue. Since the combination of these two colors turned out to be more beautiful than I had expected, I began using them as accent colors to decorate the class schedule, the classroom door, my desk, and the back wall of the classroom. I avoided using other colors and focused solely on these two accent colors to decorate the classroom elements. As a result, the classroom was praised for its stylish design, and we won first place. I demonstrated exceptional talent in environmental design—so much so that my teacher told me I absolutely had to pursue a career in design—which is what inspired me to dream of a career in that field.

Art Direction for the Drama Club

I served as the art director for the drama club, responsible for creating the stage sets. For the play to shine and for the audience to focus on my friends’ performances, the stage design was crucial. Feeling the weight of that responsibility, I analyzed the script thoroughly and did my best to design sets that perfectly suited each play. In particular, I couldn’t just use any furniture on stage; I had to select pieces that matched the script’s atmosphere and facilitated the actors’ movements. I also did a lot of research to make the set feel like a real-life space we would actually use. After all that hard work, when the play opened and many friends told me they were moved by it, I was deeply moved as well. This is because being moved by the play meant that the chemistry between the actors and the director had reached its peak. Furthermore, set design was crucial for capturing the script’s atmosphere as accurately as possible; since the play’s emotional impact was driven by how well the set design aligned with the script, I was deeply moved whenever I heard praise from my friends. While designing spaces in the play that we commonly see in everyday life, I felt inspired to study not just the spaces within the play but the spaces we universally use, which led me to decide to major in Interior Environment Design.

Examples of Practicing Consideration, Sharing, and Cooperation

Teaching a Junior Who Only Wanted to Do What Was Noticeable Many of the students who wanted to join the theater club did so to stand out or to be in the spotlight in front of their peers. However, the theater club wasn’t exclusively for actors, and in theater, actors aren’t the only ones who play leading or important roles. Yet, some juniors who joined the club to act didn’t seem to take the various tasks required for a production seriously. I decided I needed to help them realize that theater isn’t just about acting, so I didn’t assign them roles or even give them tasks. Instead, I simply had them observe everything we did as we prepared for the production. The other upperclassmen and friends were all aware of my intention and joined in. I gave them this opportunity because I expected that even though they initially insisted they wouldn’t participate unless they were actors, they would eventually change their minds. At first, the underclassmen resented us for not immediately casting them as “actors,” and they wore displeased expressions. However, as they observed the entire process of preparing the play from start to finish, they gradually came to realize that theater does not exist solely for the actors; rather, “actors” are merely one component of the play, and the play is only truly complete when each role is properly fulfilled. Finally, as the play unfolded with all elements—direction, set design, art, and acting—coming together, and the performance concluded successfully, the juniors who had caused trouble came back to me and confessed that they had repented for their mistakes. They admitted that they hadn’t realized how much preparation a play required and that they had come to see how foolish their own belief—that actors alone were the protagonists—had been. I was very grateful to my juniors for teaching me this lesson. Afterward, they told me that instead of insisting on being actors, they first considered what they were good at when volunteering for the play, and that they were deeply moved by experiencing firsthand the entire process of creating a play through collaboration. Through this experience, I was able to share the importance of cooperation with others, and I, too, was able to reaffirm my commitment to cooperation through this experience.