“My greatest accomplishment is learning to speak English,” freshman Sydney Kim said. 

To the surprise of many classmates, Kim’s first language isn’t English‒it’s Korean. Kim moved to the US from Korea when she was just in 5th grade. At the time, she could only say a few English phrases and words. 

“I had to work diligently to learn English. It was a struggle sometimes,” Kim said. 

The hard work paid off, however, because she went on to present for the Chairman’s Award, which is the highest honor given to the winning robotics team at competitions, and placing 9th at DECA Area. 

While Kim considers learning to speak English fluently as her greatest accomplishment, there is another accomplishment Kim is quite proud of‒partaking in a Korean game show. 

“The game show was called 여행 아이 들 which translates to Traveling Kids. It was a very interesting experience. I went to Malta all by myself!” Kim said. 

Traveling Kids essentially featured children traveling to different countries while completing missions and learning new responsibilities. The missions were mainly about navigating your way through a new country. Kim had to do certain tasks such as, find a place to sleep with only a map and some money. At just age twelve, Kim was traveling to different countries alone and learning valuable life lessons. 

“I learned a lot of things like, responsibility and how to deal with finances. The most important thing I learned though, was to be grateful for my parents. Even though it was fun to travel, It was hard doing things by yourself,” Kim said.  

Traveling Kids taught Kim a lot of valuable lessons but, it also allowed her to form bonds with other kids on the show. At first, Kim had a hard time connecting to the other kids because she was the youngest. Eventually, they all began to be friends, Kim being especially close to her roommate. 

“We were all competitive with each other, but we all became really close,” Kim said. 

Although her time on the show was only a couple weeks, Kim visited more countries and met more people then some others  will ever be able to. Being on a Korean game show is probably something most people would never get to partake in, and Kim feels especially lucky that she has gotten the opportunity. 

“I think fondly of this experience, It was really fun to travel. I will never forget it,” Kim said.