Hoyoung James Lee - Internationals Scholarship Winner

I first came to Canada when I was 9 years old (grade 4). Everything seemed new and very difficult for me to achieve. When I first attended South Popular Elementary School, I turned out to be the only Korean in the whole school. This was one of my most important turning points of my school years. I learned English very fast with the help of good friends and my amazing teacher who I still remember, Mrs. Fatterly. This amazing group of people helped me through difficult situation as well as helping me adapt to the new environment that I have been dropped off to. When I moved on to the W.A Fraser Middle School, I have been exposed to new programs and had more variety of things that I was responsible with. When I joined the rugby team in grade 8, I was given the knowledge of how important teamwork was and how working hard always paid off at the end.

Through these educations, I have learned to adapt to new environment and was taught ways to respect other people’s opinion as well as getting my opinions out there. When I finally came to W.J Mouat Secondary School, aside from learning academy courses, I have learned how to live my life and what I wanted to do. I have learned music since grade 4 but in the year of 2011, I was struck with the idea of becoming a musician, more specifically, a composer/performer. The band program was very amusing and gave me the idea of pursuing my life into music to give joy and hope to everyone around me and because I believe music is also a type of language that all race and all countries spoke, I thought through communicating with music that it could allow me to feel and relate to people with difficulties and joy. Even for a second, I have never thought that I did any of my achievements such as winning the first place medal for the performance in music from numerous festivals, winning the medal for being the most memorable performer, receiving over $100,000 from numerous universities for scholarship and many other achievements by myself. I always thought that this was possible due to the support I have received from my parents, friends, teachers, and most importantly my one and only god, Jesus. Thank you again for giving me this scholarship and I hope one day I can be there to help students to pursue their dream into something they love without worrying about their financial issues.