Enterprise staff

May 12th, 2010

Davis High School senior Jane Seo has been named a 2010 Gates Millennium Scholar, an honor that includes a full-ride college and graduate-school scholarship awarded through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Seo, 19, who will attend Harvard University this fall, hopes to major in philosophy, anthropology or psychology, as well as write for The Harvard Crimson, the college newspaper.

Out of 20,500 applicants, Seo was one of only 1,000 students chosen to be a Gates Millennium Scholar. Nominees were evaluated on academic achievement, community service and leadership potential.

“I'm so very proud of her,” says Jane's mother, Kyunghee. “She's a really hard worker. She had to overcome lots of difficulty, not only the language but also the cultural shock. That motivated Jane. ... She stands by herself.”

The Seo family — which also includes Jane's father Taewon and brother DJ — moved to Davis from South Korea in 2001 when Jane was in the fourth grade. While Taewon worked on sabbatical as a visiting professor of mechanical engineering at UC Davis, the family settled in and started to learn English.

“That was really hard,” Jane remembers. “In Korea, I was the smart girl who knew everything, and I had a lot of friends. Moving here was hard, not being able to talk.”

But Jane recalls immersing herself in English: “We would basically live in the library. We read all the little kids' books, and we learned pretty fast.”

Watching television helped, too, she recalls. “My favorites were game shows, like 'The Price is Right' and 'Supermarket Sweep.' You don't really have to know English to know what's going on.”

Those English skills have been put to good use. Seo is the editor-in-chief of The HUB, the student-run newspaper at Davis High; president of Key Club; and a member of the Model U.N. and Math teams. In addition to her involvement at school, she also volunteers at Davis Korean School as a language teacher for young children.

An avid writer, she has published several articles in Teen Ink Magazine and was named California Super Teen by Next Step Magazine. Seo has been employed as an editorial assistant at The Davis Enterprise for the past two years.

Seo says her greatest accomplishment is “making my parents proud.”

She says her parents sacrificed so much for their children, “providing us such a good education and so many opportunities.” DJ Seo is a junior at Caltech in Pasadena, studying engineering.

For the past eight years, the family has been separated while Taewon teaches mechanical engineering at Andong National University in South Korea and the Seo children finished school in Davis. All are together in Davis only during winter and summer breaks.

So, what does this busy, driven student do for fun?

“I love biking,” Seo says. “Two years ago, when the gas prices were so high, I felt bad driving. I told my mom as long as I'm staying in the Davis boundary, I'll only ride my bike. So I bike to school, church, work, everywhere. On weekends, I like to ride just for fun, when it's sunny outside.”

The application process for the Gates Millennium Scholarship involved writing eight essays. To be eligible for a Gates millennium scholarship, students must be African-American, American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian and Pacific Islander American, or Hispanic-American.

The Gates Millennium Scholars Program was established in 1999 and was funded initially by a $1.6 billion grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The 2010 Gates Millennium scholars represent 45 states, the District of Columbia and three U.S. territories.

Seo also has been honored by the Elks National Foundation as the top winner of its Most Valuable Student Scholarship, and will receive a four-year award of $12,000. She is the recipient of a 2010 Sam Walton Community Scholarship of $3,000 and a Horatio Alger Scholarship of $4,000 as well.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1352473&forum_id=1#15370913)