My Story/college

My Story - Sunny Kim

Sunny Kim - Korea
North Dakota State University

My name is Sunny Kim from North Dakota State University. I have been aware of Students Today Leaders Forever since 2008 spring break. I have been interacting with STLF in a variety of ways even though you may think it is not that long time to get familiar with one group.

I had four Pay It Forward tours and attended regular meetings almost every week on the NDSU campus. I also participated in many volunteer works through STLF-Fill the Dorm project which supplied the nonperishable foods for the community of Fargo and North Dakota, and senator of NDSU Student Government.

I got to meet unforgettable friends and have unforgettable enshrined memory in my heart while I was and am in STLF. Through these interactions, I gained and learned the followings: I got to learn what my friends and the people that I was not familiar with think, and we became a close friend. When I had PIF tours I was surrounded by people for minimum two days or at maximum eight days.Regardless of how much I knew him or her, I met, sit by, and talked to them during the trip. I was so surprised that Cam liked Sushi rolls (It was interesting that American guy liked raw fish for Korean which is me!), Amanda had desire to be a pillar of the school, Josh’s dream was a elementary school teacher (but he is 6.5 feet tall).  An engineer student, Mike had a pretty good taste in drawing and music, and so on.

After the tour was done, I became to see the new sphere of my friends, which other his or her friends don’t.  I became to understand how happy it was to help other people. I did many volunteer and group works. I taught elementary school kids (even though I wasn’t that good at English), cleaned the shelter for homeless people, served foods in the nursing home, picked up tons of trash on the earth, made a bicycle road in the mountain, cleansing bunch of trophies, polishing windows in the music room, weeding, having a card game with grandmothers and grandfathers in the nursing home, harvested eggplants and tomatoes, and so on. All these things were not for my money or career. I used my energy and sweated not for myself but for people and communities which needed me.

However, I gained something from there: happiness. This happiness is connected to leadership. Leadership is happiness when you work for other people. Before I was in the STLF, I wasn’t a big fan of volunteer works. I just wanted to do only profitable works and would rather work alone instead of together.

After I was done with many sweating works, it changed me. I felt happiness from the workings and realized that they needed me. To do well both of what I was able to feel happiness from and what they needed me to do, I perceived that I had to practice the work which can provide a much bigger happiness-giving important work through medical doctor. It made my self to be concentrated on my study.

Through STLF, I gained friends, memories, leadership, and clear goal. All those things are the most precious ones for me. If I had not known that STLF existed, my life would have been less happy.

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