Why Penn

Why Penn Prompt: 'Considering both the specific undergraduate school to which you are applying and the unique aspects of the University of Pennsylvania, what do you hope to learn from and contribute to the Penn community? (Please answer in one page, approximately 500 words)

When I was young, I used to aspire after my father, as boys usually do in their childhoods. My father was a university professor at Public Health Policy and Management, but I wasn’t old enough to fully understand what his profession was about, so I comprehended it as something similar to medical science. Therefore, when he had answers to my questions on the political scandals of the Korean President and his private business, or to the scientific debates on the intensifying global warming, I was astonished.

So one day, I asked him, “Dad, how do you know about all these different stuff? Aren’t you someone like…a doctor?” That was when he explained to me that his job wasn’t related to medical practice, but it was to setting the blueprints of Korea’s public healthcare policies. When I asked him what that had to do with knowing things about engineering or biochemistry or economics or contemporary issues, he replied, “If you want to propose a healthcare policy, you have to be more than just a doctor. You have to possess a certain degree of knowledge about medical science. You have to understand the economic and political factors involved with your proposal.” And then with a smile, he added, “But it isn’t just my work that requires comprehensive knowledge, Hyung Seok. Whatever you do in the future, it is important for you to try to understand multiple different aspects of the world, because it will eventually help you in many ways. If you want to become a big person, you have to grasp the big picture of the society.”

Growing up, I heeded his advice, trying to diversify my interests in numerous subjects. Apart from political science or history, my personal favorites, I tried to devote myself to mathematics and science too, my least favorites. And although I wasn’t good at everything I tried, I could prove my father’s beliefs true: knowing about the biomedical causes of the mad cow disease helped me deeply engage in class debates; understanding the economic concepts of supply and demand furthered my interpretation of the Great Depression or the Sub-Prime Mortgage Crisis. Then, comprehensive knowledge in different areas led to a more profound understanding in each of them, and profundity to insight. Dispersing my interests really did help me to become a much better person.

This is the reason I believe the Interdisciplinary Dual Degree and Minors Programs in University of Pennsylvania would be my perfect fits. Unlike many other institutions, U.Penn encourages me to explore a variety of academic possibilities, which I’m confident that I would like and excel at. Whether it’s learning about Business Management in Wharton, Asian American Studies in School of Arts&Science, or even Urban Real Estate and Development as a minor course, I believe they will all contribute to my improvement as a person. Conversely, my insatiable greed towards studying different subjects would also contribute to the all-around development of the Penn community. If this university shares similar ideas with my father, and wished to tell its pupils “Don’t be confined to a single major; it’s just one small part of the big picture,” I am its model applicant.