When I began volunteering at KYCC, I came up with an activity for students during their break: a real-life Dungeons & Dragons (DND) game. As kids would run the hallways amok, yelling about a goblin haunting the stairs, or find the “Enchanted Sword”. As the students continued to participate and play, it became clear that art is an intriguing activity to enjoy. Ultimately, art became my way of creating experiences to invite others to imagine, create, and become their own storytellers. As I tutored, I sketched many swords, enemies, and characters for students to meet and attack, and taped them into cardboard cutouts. Many of the other volunteers were interested, and I adapted a simple DND session for the students. In just a few hours, I created an experience that encouraged creativity, collaboration, and fun for the younger generations. This would continue for over 2 years until I had to take leave. Every day, each student created new enemies, events, classes, and even weapons. They’d present it to teachers and me: they were enjoying their own form of art, drawing, writing, and roleplaying. Those special moments taught me just how valued art is for students to engage in their creativity and thinking. As I transitioned into game development, drawing for Slice of Them reminded me of KYCC: nostalgic memories and students excitedly finding new quests through the stories I’ve created through art. Each character was adapted from a student’s story within the DND session, creating a loop of expressions and stories: I was their storyteller; they became my storyteller. The creations the students and I made in KYCC weren’t just for display, but to share with others. KYCC has allowed my perspectives to evolve, which lets other students achieve the same goal: to open their creative roots and let them grow. As I continued to create Slice of Them, I’ve continued to expand my creativity by tutoring many other younger students in art and design. As I continue investing my career in game development, I hope to achieve a similar goal whilst in college, allowing students to participate, imagine, and strengthen their creative confidence.

When I first adopted my dog, Kirbie, in December 2024, I quickly learned that caring for him would require my utmost patience, commitment, and compassion. He faced many medical problems: multiple skin tags, an ever-growing neck tumor, and several nail infections. I spent many months learning about his tumors and skin tags, along with possible treatment and removal options, ensuring that I could do everything possible for him. As his health deteriorated, I made a bold decision and traveled to San Francisco to volunteer at Urban Pet Hospital. In exchange for surgery to remove these issues, I offered more than fifty volunteer hours. During that time, I worked alongside assistants and cared for other pets, spending well over fifty hours cleaning surgical equipment and cages while organizing schedules and managing drug supplements. Kirbie taught me an important lesson about relationships that I have carried with me even after his passing: relationships inspire us to care deeply for and show kindness to others who struggle. The bond I created with him led me to serve animals, veterinary professionals, and even the broader community. This experience transformed my approach to leadership and teamwork, eventually leading me to become president of my high school E-Sports Club. I focused on maintaining the club’s size and inclusivity while creating tournaments that allowed students to cope with stress and anxiety during testing weeks. Many members expressed how much they enjoyed the club because of its casual yet exciting meetings, supportive mentors, and welcoming atmosphere. Building meaningful relationships with members and advisors proved to me that leadership is not about directing others; it is about creating opportunities through kindness and encouragement. That is something Kirbie taught me. As these values expanded into other challenges and commitments, I became increasingly involved in game development, Pokémon GO, the USC community, and more. I organized Community Days each month, held tutoring sessions for newer coders, and supported newly admitted USC students by connecting them with others. Seeing the communities I participate in grow through both collective effort and my own contributions brings more life to these environments, and that is what makes the work so rewarding to me. Thomas Griffin’s story inspired my compassion, loyalty, and commitment to relationships and kindness. The story he shared serves as a reminder that communities grow through relationships, and relationships grow through kindness. And kindness grows through communities. It comes full circle! This scholarship would assist me in continuing my education, strengthening community building and connection, and supporting my college journey as I expand my efforts to mentor students, help communities thrive, and use technology as a tool for creating stronger connections and services. Reducing financial barriers would allow me to devote more time to creating supportive environments where others feel valued, included, and empowered to make a difference together.

A goal I’ve set for myself when I woke up for school was to learn at least 3 new lessons. Could be a new subject in school, a new extracurricular, new opportunities, jobs, etc. I chose 3 to manage my time and education to align them through valuable research. And this is how I found what I now do for a living: game development. Game development allowed me to unleash my creativity, which had been bottled up in my head, to be painted into my projects. Within those games, I’ve mended my goal: to create a game that could connect with many others through meaningful and nostalgic means. So, where to even begin? I grew up when Flash games were very popular: everyone was playing Happy Wheels, Commando, Motherload, all my favorites. Even though these were relics of the past, I was introduced to Godot by a friend who was professionally developing games in the 10th grade. However, my liking of video games was already strong—fairly because I played them almost every day—so I decided to take that day to learn the engine and coding language. Years go by, and I created my first game through a tutorial. It was a simple game—a platformer where you jump and collect coins. It wasn’t anything special, and it didn’t feel nostalgic either: it was a game to explore myself and the engine. And hence, the main reason I valued my education, despite most learning resources being free, is that learning new things always excited me. During the year after that, I took a community college class about game development. It humbled me in the most personal way possible. Instead of being hurt by my lack of understanding, I took it as a challenge to deepen my coding knowledge and abilities. That semester also taught me a new lesson about my abilities. Simply put, I would benefit from higher education to bring my creativity to bringing nostalgic video game memories to others. As I took that class, I decided to pay for programs to understand other game engines. Some were five dollars, some were a hundred, all of which had valuable information expressing the game industry, multitude of game engines, coding knowledge, and practices. From these experiences, I’ve grown motivated to continue my pursuit and now plan to attend the college that will best suit what I wish to continue. I’ve always found nostalgic games to have a hard-hitting impact on my childhood, especially when computers were new. Now that I’ve been able to recreate that experience with my knowledge of game engines, I believe I’ll be able to one day recreate that nostalgia that many other people have had during their childhood. To me, allowing that nostalgic memory for many others is more rewarding than anything: while it proves that the game I created is good, it’s good enough that others felt nostalgic about their past. I’ve experienced this feeling many times, and it can’t be described with words: you’re just put into the virtual world from a screen, but it feels so much more immersive once you revisit the game after five or so years. By pursuing a higher education, I guarantee my option of creating better games through the ideologies behind what makes a game fun and how to create a diverse world through my eyes, where others will find it comforting and exciting to play, especially if it’s something similar to their childhood, evoking that nostalgia. Success isn’t about making the most money or sales; it’s hearing that others found the game fun and felt their nostalgic pasts come back to them when they played. With the multitude of games I’ve created to build my understanding, I’ve grown to learn that there are infinite subjects and terms to learn and understand; I can shoot for the galaxies that exist beyond the game universe, but maybe it’s ok if I land on the moon.

When I was filling out my financial application to apply for colleges, I was required to look through all of the Korean documents my parents carried. Even though I was purely Korean, I still couldn’t read my language fluently. As I filled in the information, I realized just how much my family struggled. However, the more paperwork I filled out, the more I understood how it’s improved my knowledge of finances and even my career in game development. During my youth, I worked in a photo-shooting business that my dad has been running for over 30 years. Even though I wasn’t interested in it, my dad loved his job and taught me. I was taught business tactics: marketing and sales, optimization, and services and goods. I learned about budgeting, cost management, and concepts of overpricing and underpricing to find the sweet spot. We managed the household, business, and our own taxes. I’ve continued to manage his paperwork, finances, taxes, and the building the store is in. A few years ago, we received a paper stating that our business may be taken down and sold to another company. While we were barely scraping by, this instilled paranoia within our entire family. The fear instilled more awareness of finance; it was everywhere. If the business fell, then we’d probably lose everything. We wouldn’t be able to pay bills, be forced to take loans, and, as my father said, have the worst debt, generational debt. That fear alone pushed our family forward to take action. With a day to finalize everything, we’ve reclaimed our business, but there were many valuable lessons that my father told me. One that I’ve always considered would be "Don't spend it all to save one thing.” While I didn’t envision myself as an entrepreneur or interested in finance, I’ve only seen how a business excels in its actions. Of course, finance connected further throughout my experience: marketing was for promoting my games, risk was for the $100 fee that Steam wants, and financial caution was for platform choices for my promotions; the list goes on. Game development wasn’t always about coding: it was about managing my time and money to the right places so that my games could gain popularity, leading to more views and recognition. As I continue to save up for college and create a savings account, I’ve always made sure to save my money and control my wants and needs. I always aim to save my money and tend to avoid wants, no matter what. I will work comfortably and happily in an internship or make games myself to raise revenue. I will save and invest at the right times, allowing my future to thrive, even during times when my money situation isn’t what I want. As I’ve learned more financial jargon throughout my life, I’ve planned to use it to grow my entrepreneurship abilities further and allow my games to thrive with new audiences. Throughout financing, I’ve learned many skills and issues. Financial jargon allowed me to be independent and responsible with my own money and savings while also breaking the cycle of instability. Our family may still struggle under the inflated prices, but I’ve utilized my knowledge to let my parents make responsible purchases and understand what is right for them. Finances always left me confused in my elementary classes, but now I’ve grown confident to break the ice and understand further about how they'll impact my future and family.

Broken lightbulbs, broken floorboards, broken walls: the house I called home felt like a broken dream. Pieces of broken glass or wood shattered on the floors, piercing my feet often. There would be dead cockroaches, flies everywhere, and occasional rats scurrying. So, I built a cleaner home for my family by advocating for change. When I thought about repairing my home, I walked to a faraway library and picked up multiple books about construction. There, I researched infrastructure, materials, building styles, and common mistakes, such as improper structural integrity. When I brought up the idea to my father, he immediately agreed, and we began to repair our home. Inspecting the area, I understood the issues: The materials were deteriorating; The structure wasn’t balanced; There were tiny gaps that small rodents and insects could go into; The walls were too narrow and thin; I had to go digging under my own house and prayed the house wouldn’t collapse while installing new floorboards. With the amount of money we had, it took five years of continuous hard work. My parents worked hard through multiple jobs, while I focused on my education, studies, and hobbies, such as game-making. The financial situation was tight: we barely scraped by the bills we had to pay off. And even with the money we had left, it was tedious to spend on our home. Sometimes, we couldn’t make any progress on the house because we couldn’t purchase equipment or materials and had to save up. Sometimes, we didn’t even have food on the table because of the cost of the materials. Nevertheless, I strived to push through the difficulties. Through game development internships, I assisted my parents with their multiple jobs to stay healthy. While learning about industry practices of game development, I devoted my earnings to purchasing materials and tools, medication for my parents, and other necessities such as food. Even through these responsibilities, I continued to tend to the house whenever I could. Looking back, leading my father to mistakes in the house, suggesting the proper way to fix an issue, and understanding my father’s point of view to fix a certain issue were all ways I saw my leadership turn into a way to understand others and optimize teamwork. Even through my financial hardships, I’ve grown to live happily, and I've seen my home be transformed into a better place. I’ve grown more confident in my leadership: I became president of the E-Sports club in my high school and even the lead developer of game jams. I’ve found the house we rebuilt to be complete. And now I plan to build a second one for myself in my

When I first received my laptop, it was as if hundreds of possibilities were put onto me. Given to me on my 15th birthday, I brought it to school to focus on my own interests and studies. Before the laptop, I used a personal computer (PC) to get things done: school assignments, YouTube scrolling, and making games. Receiving a laptop has expanded my possibilities, and I’ve only found myself becoming more productive with many apps. The main app that I’ve utilized is Godot. It is a game engine that allows my creativity to be shown through interactive stories or puzzles. As I continue to study computer science and game development, I’ve only seen Godot as a great introductory tool: I create simple games and understand the fundamentals of computer science. I understood how to debug correctly, strengthening my problem-solving and logical skills. It’s a resource for me to express my understanding and love for game-making while continuing to learn programming. On the side, Obsidian was used for multitasking and creating schedules. Obsidian is a complex note-taking app that assists in tasks I need to accomplish in a step-by-step order. While it didn’t make me feel like a sergeant, I have designed my own obsidian vault to be strategic: full of strict orders, commands, and rewards for accomplishing them. I’ve used this everywhere: internship, schoolwork, and other larger-scale projects. This has further expanded my knowledge of computer science, as its note-taking capabilities was similar to my coding experience. I’ve broken down difficult tasks into smaller ones, simplified the logic behind accomplishing each task, and made sure to type them all out. Obsidian has continued to transition my habits and maintain a clean workspace as I pursue a career in computer science. While there are many other apps, Krita is my last shout. Krita is a free drawing application for artists to create mesmerizing photos and drawings, regardless of financial situations. While art isn’t my area of expertise, I loved to decompile the program to understand how Krita operated. There were many live services, files, programs, and so much more. Each section was pieced together logically and used advanced coding jargon, including Python Plugin Support, engines, and more. Alongside understanding how the program functioned, Krita has been a magnificent inspiration behind a few of my games. And it’s been a great source of creating drawings for my solo development games, which is always a nice touch. Godot, Obsidian, and Krita have all allowed my pursuit of favoritism of game development and computer science to expand. Writing code, being organized, and understanding how larger-scale companies created these applications only allow me to understand the complexity of computer science and its wonders. And by being able to create games, I continue to tell my story of how I have seen myself. My ambition to understand such apps to witness the complexity I can carry myself in only elevates me to use more applications every day and understand their uses to the people and me.

Every year, my family members host a massive charity event within my church. Loud music, followed by lotteries, and followed by a lot of praising and dancing was the optimal event my family believed in. During service, I assisted with cooking and cleaning the church space while working overtime to relieve the burdens of other workers. Compassion was hereditary in my family; Gifts in our family were a way to bless many others through gratitude, regardless of their misfortunes. So when I was messaged that a teacher invited me to teach a specific subject during Sunday school, I took that opportunity to teach students about a subject even I struggled with: anxiety and worry. Compassion felt strange to me. I was extremely anxious and always overthink. So when the invitation was offered, I refused. I was about to teach people my fear. My fear was speaking out loud about the issue. I was used to coaching many others with their troubles, but I couldn’t give in to my own fear or worries. However, I was relentless with my ability to serve the people: to relieve their burdens from their minds. And that trade-off is what allowed me to overcome my anxious thoughts and step forward to work hard on collecting data and researching the common mental disorder. Questions were thrown, everyone understood, and the data made sense. The presentation was a massive success. In the end, even my parents were aware, and so was the president of the church. They were absolutely stunned by my performance, and I couldn’t feel any more joy than that day. I’ve continued to present presentations on mental disorders to the students every year, and everyone was extremely entertained and left with further awareness of themselves. I moved on to tutoring other students in Godot, a game engine, to answer their questions and address their confusion. I couldn’t help but feel proud assisting the students that I’ve also struggled with. The initial fear of my first teaching session turned into a charity service I provided to the community of newer developers. With patience and a commitment to showcasing my passion, game development has deeply inspired my ability to convey information and compassion through meaningful stories. I continue to show my compassion to many others through media other than writing. I’ve wished to craft a game that tells my story of compassion and struggles to many others, while carrying my parents’ gift to many others. Compassion has forever been my strongest emotional suit, and I wish to display this assistance to many other people. I’ve only seen myself grow stronger as a resilient, hardworking person because of my compassion for people, and I continue to share this journey with you all through my lessons and stories.

Every morning before I left for preschool, I would open up YouTube to watch the random videos of video game walkthroughs. I never understood what was happening: I was just a kid who was drawn to flashy effects, cartoony visuals, and hilarious sound effects. Remember Flash games? Those were a part of my childhood I want to experience again tenfold. And here I am now: creating video games as a hobby, which I plan to pursue in college. Slowly, as I grew mesmerized, I began my self-study of game development and design. Years later, my interests transferred to my high-school-senior self, who makes similar games to boost his experience and create more amazing games. As 3 years passed within my game development journey, I’ve continued to improve on my trips, fumbles, and mistakes. With the threat of AI taking over coding, I’ve always discouraged myself from using it, except for learning new principles or practices. AI should be used as a tool and not as a way to finish assignments mindlessly. The fun in coding came from struggle and success, not answers blatantly provided by an AI. I liked the feeling of struggling to build foundational problem-solving skills, which may even carry me into industry standards. I made games because I had such a strong, genuine interest in them, not because I wanted to make a money-grabbing mobile game with millions of ads or be so bashful about having “tons of legendary heroes." From my knowledge, and being a jack-of-all-trades, I’ve continued to pursue my work into being a general scripter or a gameplay programmer. A few months ago (December 2025), I was accepted into a game project, Brave Frontier Re: Coded, and was told various times about my skills and commitment. While I was afraid of the interview, thinking there would be many others who understood coding techniques in more advanced ways than I did, I ended up being the strongest applicant, which inspired me to further pursue my interest in game programming. They have complimented my skills, organization, and UI creation to the point where even I started to doubt my own abilities; of course, I could do better, no matter what. I’ve worked many hours alongside the team, making slow yet progressive changes to mimic the nostalgia of memories many other players and I had before the game shut down in 2022. This, alongside my own independent project, Slice of Them, is the main reason I’ve continued to pursue my interests in programming for video games and in general. From making my first character move from key inputs to making many complex patterns to control auto-battling systems, I’ve always found my interest in game development by starting with watching and playing video games in my youth. By winning this scholarship, I will further my interests to attend my dream school, USC: School of Cinematic Arts, to purchase equipment and guidance to advance my learning opportunities and allow my dream of past nostalgia to become a reality once again. While my parents saw it as a waste of time, I’ve seized the opportunity to express my creativity and further my interest in game mechanics and unique challenges to think outside the box to solve issues.

If I were to tell you that a community could be created from a video game, my parents, in particular, would immediately frown and disagree. Their thoughts of not trusting strangers and video games being a waste of time naturally mended how I thought of the world, turning me into a shy extrovert. So when I first started playing Pokémon Go during the pandemic, in 7th grade, the idea of community became more breathtaking than what my parents had told me. Pokémon Go introduced multiple mechanics throughout its years to make you feel more connected with virtual individuals, leading to numerous connections with people and the communities it brought along. As I continued to play past middle school, I decided to commit my time to a community called Burbank Pogo. It was a small community in Burbank, a city in California, but I felt as if I belonged there. Belonging there was my first step: coincidentally, the easiest one. But being promoted was another unexpected step. Over the past few years, I’ve assisted in giveaways, led people to the right area, or ordered food for the community. To me, it always seemed like a natural thing to do: I never saw it as a chore or a worrisome task; it was simply something I gave back to the community because of how they allowed me to break out of my introverted shell. The manager noticed my commitment throughout the meetings I’ve attended, which led to this surprising announcement. This act shaped my life to understand that even if every human isn’t the same, common interests shape a normal community into a massive community. Now, as I continue into my last year of high school, I’ve often continued to worry about losing such an opportunity. My youthful years would suddenly come to a halt, with little time to manage the community that only continued to grow. That’s why I began to self-study game development. Most games were for the sake of understanding code and design. However, my college educational goals don’t extend to making the best game. A dream game of mine pertains to being able to build a community that’s just as successful as Pokémon Go’s success. So few games have achieved this possibility, and I’ve been amazed at how comfortably I fit in with the people who were also within the community in person. I’d see my future with the people that I care for and respect, relaxing in a small community with similar interests. The games I create have my wish of not only being spoken about by communities of people but also by individuals. My college educational goals have been shaped by my acts of giving back to my community, by being able to dig deeper into the specifics. I continue to build games to satisfy the steps to accomplish my ability to tell stories and create communities, and I will enable my abilities to become polished and further challenged.

I was never a big fan of most of my teachers; instead of caring about individuals, they treated everyone just as individuals. In high school, I had a great computer science teacher who changed my perspective on video game making. He was a man in his 70s and was often very grouchy, and his name was Scott. Yes, a teacher who'd rather be called by his first name than Mr. "Portnoff." While he was not too into teaching and spent most of his time doing all the code right in front of us without explanation, I found that time useful to work more independently and research on my own. He taught me that sometimes, you can't always rely on adults to chew up your food and feed it to you; you need to build up your responsibility, as long as you build enough courage to. This was during freshman year. I had him for another two years for certain classes, and over time, I found him even more encouraging of what I do. Every time I made another game in his class when I had nothing else to do, he always seemed to commend what I’d done and would ask, “How are you doing this?!” I just smiled and nodded, telling him, “You made me this way, Scott.” Every time I had to explain, he seemed to tut at me, but I knew behind that he was proud of how I carried his message. Yes, it may make sense that because he's old, he might seem like a big ol’ grumpy man who "hates the youths." I'll be honest—he also seemed like the kind of person who would be yelling at students to "get outta my classroom." And you'd be correct. He’s an old man, but even then, he’s carried much more wisdom than the usual old dialect. In all honesty, I’ve been wanting to create more games and learn more programming languages, and Scott has helped me do this. Not by teaching me, but by simply encouraging me that I can. And that’s exactly what I did. For two years, I’ve learned Godot, C#, Lua, Java, and even Python. While I’m not exactly proficient at most of them, I know for a fact that I can count on myself, because I taught myself in the end. And it most likely wouldn’t have happened any other way if I hadn’t found that courage, influenced by my own computer science teacher. When that day started, I thought it would just be an easy A class. But it turned into a class that sparked another cable in my head to begin the rewiring process of what is soon to come of my future.

Video games have become a reality the longer we exist on this earth. As game development rises in the industry, I have become one of the many who wish to contribute to this goal of making the world more fun through digital media. Therefore, the future I plan is to attend USC and continue pursuing game development, challenging myself with additional internships and jobs to further hone my skills. By continuing to create games through both experience and passion, I hope to achieve what I’ve always dreamed of: working at the very game studio that inspired me as a child. Knowing the strength of their community and the dedication of their staff, having the opportunity to work alongside the very people who shaped my childhood feels like a true accomplishment, if I am fortunate enough to be accepted. I also want to continue supporting the people I care about and spreading positivity to my friends by creating entertaining and meaningful games. Additionally, I hope to explore the path of becoming an independent game developer to train myself in every area that contributes to game development—music theory, art, code, game design, and more. By utilizing these skills, I can continue to be a diverse worker who is a jack of all trades, which especially helps me in the future when I begin the horrors that are job applications. Winning this scholarship would further motivate me by allowing me to purchase essential assistive technology to sharpen my skills. Coming from a low-income background, I’ve been fortunate to have access to the tools I currently have. Growing up, it was a struggle to even have food on the table, let alone afford the equipment necessary to work with advanced technology. However, after years of saving and investing, I’ve finally reached a point where I’ve discovered my true passion—game development. My skills have been primarily self-taught through relentless trial and error. I’ve become proficient in Godot, but I’m determined to expand my expertise into Unity, Unreal Engine, Roblox Studio, and even GameMaker. Winning this scholarship would help cover my college tuition, allowing me to fill the gaps in my knowledge and strengthen the foundation I’ve built. It would also support my family and allow me to invest in courses that teach the basics of new engines, helping me diversify my programming experience and become even more capable in future game development. As a high school senior with limited time for the hobbies I once enjoyed, I plan to carefully manage the final years before entering the demanding world of adulthood and college. Game making was a task at first, but has become a full-on hobby for me, and may even become the future of what I do for a living. As of now, I plan to continue to live my life as happily as I can within my expertise, and hope to consider that, in reality, life is just a game with extra steps.