Minseok Choi

Our fifth featured alum is Minseok Choi, Class of 2018. After he finished his IB finals exam and graduated from AISG in May 2018, he offers an insight into his life after AISG. 

Q1. You graduated from AISG less than a year ago, and a lot of students still know you. Yet, for those who may not know you, can you give a brief introduction about yourself?

My name is Minseok Edward Choi and I studied at AISG for six years.  Throughout the six years, I actively participated in many activities that the school offered to its students, including APAC Soccer, Student Council, and National Honor Society. I will be attending Korea University from March, majoring in Business.

Q2. After graduating high school, how has your life been? What did you do during the past 9 months after graduating?

The admission system of Korean universities is quite different from other countries. After graduation, Korean 3-year-out students have to take additional university exams and interviews, which last until November. In order to get admitted into the universities, it is essential for Korean students to impress the universities during the exams and interviews. Therefore, as a 3-year-out student who applied to Korean universities, I still had to continue studying for another seven months after graduation.

Q3: You participated in many school activities and held leadership positions for many of them too. Which activity did you enjoy the most? 

APAC Soccer was definitely the activity that I enjoyed the most. I played in the varsity team for four years and was the captain of the team along with Karan Vasdev during 2017-2018 season. APAC Soccer may seem like another boring athletic activity to some people, but for me, it was one of the most valuable experiences I had during my time in AISG. The exhausting training sessions were indeed difficult to endure, but such difficulty allowed our teammates to have a strong bond with each other. During matches, every one of our teammates went all in to produce a successful result for the team. I don’t think I will be able to feel the strong teamwork that I felt during APAC Soccer ever again. I enjoyed every second of APAC Soccer and I came to love this game even more thanks to this athletic activity.

Q4. Which school activity perhaps helped you the most in developing your character and making you stand out among other applicants in universities?

I believe that showing your passion for an activity that helped develop your character is the best way to stand out among other applicants in universities. As for me, I expressed my passion through APAC soccer and Middle School Coaching (soccer). My passion for soccer made me want to help middle school players improve their soccer skills and also encouraged me to do whatever I could to make our varsity soccer team better. In this process, I was able to learn the true meaning of teamwork, support, and leadership. I would like to encourage future applicants to begin searching for activities that they truly have passion for and can write or speak about it in detail in their application essays or interviews.

Q5. As you look back at your life in AISG, what is your biggest regret of high school? For example, taking a certain IB course, not spending your free time wisely, etc. 

My biggest regret of high school would be trying to figure out everything by myself, instead of approaching teachers for help, especially during the IB program. As you probably already know, your school teachers grade your summatives and decide your IB predicted grades and Internal Assessment grades. If there’s something you don’t understand or you wish to improve certain skills, you should approach the teacher and ask how you can improve specifically. If you don’t, you lose the valuable opportunity to talk to your teachers and improve your grades. Therefore, if you feel like you need help, first go to your school teachers. They are the ones who can help you. With hindsight, I wish I went to my IB teachers more often to have short meetings with them and ask them for help.

Q6. As a person who successfully completed the IB Diploma program, do you have any final advice for the current IB students in AISG? How should they prepare for the IB finals? Which school activities should they participate in? 

For 11th grade students, please try to finish your Extended Essay first draft before the start of senior year. There are a lot more things to do during senior year and it is best to get your EE out of the way. Also, constantly talk to your EE supervisor about how you should improve your extended essay. If your EE supervisor is not a subject teacher of your EE subject, ask your supervisor to have a word with the subject teacher about your EE. And try to constantly go over the things you have learned throughout the whole year. It will certainly help you ace the IB finals. For 12th grade students, you only got three months left until the IB finals. But it’s definitely not too late to start studying for it. I recommend you to start going over everything you learned throughout your IB program from now on. It will be tough to do this while also studying for the summatives and mock exams, but it will certainly help you do better on the IB finals. And keep solving practice questions, especially from IB past papers. A lot of times, students think they know how to solve a certain question, but when they actually try solving it again, they don’t know how to solve it. For school activities, just do whatever you have passion for. You shouldn’t do an activity just because it looks good on your application, but because you really want to do it. 

If you are, or know, an AISG alum who you think we should feature here, please contact Amanda D. and Antonette L. (07cavalcantaa@aisgz.org / 07liaoa@aisgz.org).