South Korean exchange program student broadens world view at Genesis Prep

When Yeongseo “Grace” Lee came from her native Seoul, South Korea, to go to high school in America, it was recommended by her exchange program that she attend Genesis Preparatory Academy, a small private Christian school in Post Falls.

“I did not know where Idaho was,” she said. “I had never been to a small private school. There are about 100 students at Genesis Prep; schools in Seoul have 1,500 students. It was a big transition.”

But it was a transition easily accomplished, said Lee, who has spoken English since she was a small child, learning from her mother, an English teacher.

Even so, there were things to get used to.

“I had never lived outside a big city, where I walked everywhere,” she said. “Here it was necessary to drive to get to a grocery store.”

But she took quickly to the opportunity to hike and hang out at the lake with friends, something she never did back home.

“It is truly beautiful here,” she said.

She wanted to come to America to improve her already excellent English skills and to experience life in another culture. She had seen lots of American films, which, she said, certainly made America “look pretty cool.”

She realized right away that, while she found it wonderful in America, real life is not the movies. She found it easy to make new friends and partake in school activities while living with her host family.

“She really does have an amazing spirit, is fun and dedicated to her studies, taking AP classes,” her teacher, Elizabeth White, said.

A new experience was playing basketball on the school team.

“I was not at all familiar with it, but it was fun, though I was never very good at it,” she said.

Vice president of the student council, she helped organize many activities at school, including creation of an ecology club.

She found a big surprise in math competition. In her junior year, her high school science teacher said Genesis Prep had in the past been invited to a high school math competition at North Idaho College but never had a team. One week before the competition at NIC, Lee and three other students (the minimum number of students required for a team) entered.

They won, and she came in second in the individual competition. This year, her senior year, there were 10 students motivated to compete. The school came in second, and Lee took first in individual competition.

“Math is not my favorite subject at all,” she said. “I really like social studies, history and government classes.”

She carries a 4.1 GPA.

“Grace shoots for the stars and hits every time,” White said.

Over spring breaks, Lee also participated in mission trips to Mexico to help build houses, traveling by car and seeing much of the country along the way. She said the experience of working with people with greater needs has helped open her eyes to realizing and appreciating all she has in her life.

Every summer, she returns home for time with her family, which includes her mother, her father, a construction supervisor, and her older sister, a graduate student. She will return home soon to begin the admissions process for college in South Korea, where the academic year begins in March. She hopes to study law and is particularly interested in work to help people.

“I am so thankful to have gotten this high school experience,” she said. “I think I am more open-minded and have a broader perspective in how I see the world. It has been a huge and wonderful lesson.”