Personal Position
As both my parents have grown up in Korea, a country with a collectivist culture, my family is very close and values spending quality time together. We’ve always been quite an adventurous family that enjoys going out and travelling to new places with different people and experiences. I have always grown up as an extroverted, sociable person. Growing up as an only child, I have learned the importance of having friends, family, and people. Being around people always enlightens my mood and improves my overall well-being. This is why I currently have 3 jobs that all incorporate a lot of in-person interactions with a wide range of people. For one job, I tutor children as young as 5 up to the age of 16; for the two other jobs, I teach dance to young adults. These jobs are fulfilling as I put my input into others' lives, help them learn and grow as individuals. Overall, I enjoy others' company and love to lead groups of people. In school, I have always enjoyed subjects that relate to the real world and people, like sociology, as well as creative subjects such as design and visual communication. Subjects like these have taught me a lot about real issues in our society and aligned with my values and beliefs. One core value that I have is change. I believe that positive change can happen in many contexts with real actions, designs, and planning. In my future career as a designer, I aim to create real change for people in our society and use my design strengths of service/event designing, graphic design, and critical thinking to create solutions for real-world problems. I also value people and connections and believe everyone deserves happiness and fairness in any sort of relationship. From personal experience, I know that connecting with people around you benefits your well-being and has reciprocating impacts on others' well-being. The Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of Sustainable cities and communities (number 11) is the main goal that I attend to and want to create a positive impact on. Linking to this SDG, other goals such as Good health and wellbeing (number 3), no poverty (number 1), and zero hunger (number 2) relate to my definition of sustainable cities and communities. To achieve a sustainable community, all individuals should create connections and relations with flow-on effects. This can be achieved through good health and well-being, being treated equally regardless of gender, race, or age, and having access to necessities such as food and shelter.
Future Diary
I wake up bright and early at 7:30 a.m. to prepare for work. I start my day by creating a daily Tik-Tok vlog that shows my followers insight into the life of a designer and parent who has achieved their goal of working for a large company called ‘Google.’ I record my whole day and give the younger audience an insight into what a life my life looks like. These vlogs aim to be a helping hand for future aspiring designers and give tips to succeed and reach goals that you may dream of, even if it seems unrealistic. The idea I try to get across in my TikTok is that everyone's ideal future can be achieved, and their journey can be changed when hard work and real actions are put in place. I get to my office using public transport or getting dropped off by my husband on the way to also drop my children off at school. I can start my shift anytime that is suitable as my job has flexible hours that may depend on the workload and clients I work with. I work for Google as a graphic designer, innovative product designer and event designer, creating designs for the company and working with direct businesses as clients. The work environment is super bubbly with co-workers with very diverse backgrounds; the office includes many rooms and floors which are themed, such as the staff buffet rooms, snack rooms that smell like fruity candy and a ball pit to relax. One of my favourite parts of my job is working with new clients and workers with different backgrounds and creating friendships and business relations. I am currently applying for a higher role at my job to gain more authority around the office. This is because I enjoy taking charge, keeping in the loop of everyone's progress, and planning for large groups of people rather than working and planning only for myself. I make sure that everyone is achieving and working towards their goal. I also run events over the weekends for all members of the public. These community events change weekly and aim to create real change to current issues and make connections within the community to impact aspects of our society. The event topics range from mental health, poverty, as well as events that incorporate the elders into the younger generations. After work, I get home to my two kids, who have just returned from school and extracurricular activities. We have a family night, whether having a game night, going to the movies, arcade, or theme park. And once in a while, I will have a night out with my friends or husband to lay off any stress. After a long day full of work, friends, and family, I get some alone time before I sleep.
Inside the Epic Google Dublin Campus (Wurmli, 2013) Zionsville Community Events – 2015 (Zionsville, 2015)
References
L. Sam. (2022). Hands on people joins hands with Mad Snake Cafe for Social Inclusion Activities [Photograph]. Hands on People. https://handsonpeople.com.au/blog/hands-on-people-joins-hands-with-mad-snake-cafe-for-social-inclusion-activities/
P. Wurmli. (2013). Inside the Epic Google Dublin Campus [Photograph]. Office Snapshots. https://officesnapshots.com/2013/06/10/google-dublin-office-design-headquarters/
Zionsville. (2015). Zionsville Community Events – 2015 [Photograph]. Zionsville. https://www.zionsvillelife.com/zionsville-community-events-2015
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