In my case, though, I did not have to earn money. Two of my closest friends, Yang Hyun-shin (Political Science & Diplomacy, 3) and Shin Mee-kyung (Political Science & Diplomacy, 3), cautiously came up to me and asked, "Hey, do you want to try for the LG Global Challenger?"
I had no idea what the LG Global Challenger was, so my friends kindly explained to me and it was just "too good to be true." According to my friends, it was a program that lets you visit a country you like, at LG"s expenses-they give you your plane ticket, along with more than 1,820 U.S. dollars per person. All you have to do is to write out an outline for a research plan and do the research in whichever country you like.
In choosing a country, my friends and I decided on the U.S. We first needed to know what kinds of topics had been done by previous challengers so we checked out their internet site, and the books printed by the LG Global Challenger.
One day, I was watching TV and got the topic idea of the public library system in the U.S. After discussion, we all agreed to do research on the public library system in America, and how to bring such a system here to Korea.
In order to avoid anyone becoming a useless member, there needed to be roles for each member to play. For example, I became the leader of my group, planning out the detailed plan of the whole trip, along with making interview appointments with the librarians working for the libraries we wanted to visit. Also, I reserved the hotel rooms, and all the logistics.
Yang took care of the finances of the group. She also helped us obtain basic background knowledge by arranging appointments with our advisory professor who is a specialist in the field. On the other hand, Shin, who is very into working with camcorders and cameras, took charge of taking pictures and making media files during our travel. Shin was the one who always cheered us up whenever we were knocked down by all the hard work.
Just as names of products sway their popularity, the same holds for teams applying for this program. The name of my team, "Little Giants," implied that although each one of us may seem little, we can be giants when we get together.
When checking the paperwork from the website, we applied for a separate activity of webcasting. Once we were allowed to do the webcasting, we had to upload our research contents everyday. Based on our decision to do this, LG also provided us with a laptop computer, camcorder, and a digital camera.
After passing the first step, we were called for an interview. Most interviews make you nervous, but this interview made us even more so. The interviewers were very aggressive when asking questions, but we tried to be confident and talked about everything we knew about our topic. It was important for the whole group to be fully knowledgeable about the topic.
Once we were chosen to be a part of LG Global Challenger, it was crucial to take part in the activities they planned for us. The camp before going overseas was very important, because we learned useful things, including global manners and tips for traveling abroad. It was also a very good chance to meet good friends.
After these steps, all we had to do was to learn as much as we could from the visit. Taking part in the LG Global Challenger was one of the greatest achievements of my life.
By Lee Ju-young
(English Lan & Lit., 3)