That's A Wrap, 친구들!

Hello everyone! It's coming to the time to wrap this Capstone Project up, and I want to express my appreciation to anyone who has followed this journey and helped me even in the slightest along the way. It honestly did not go the way I thought it would, but part of the fun of a year-long project like this is its unpredictability. For my final post, I want to dive into the long-term successes and failures of this project, how I will carry it with me in the future, and my overall thoughts of my work now, after studying year-long.

I started this journey in learning Korean because I was always inexplicably drawn to language. And the way Korean sounded and felt on my tongue just felt so right. I loved learning everything about it--the music, the grammar, the people...it was such a good experience with cultural appreciation and awareness. However, I would like to admit I lost steam in my learning a LOT more than expected...and it gave me major setbacks in the pace I would have liked to learn with. Additionally, my favorite apps for vocabulary and grammar learning were taken off the app store and un-downloaded from my phone, so I have struggled greatly in working on my Korean skills outside of a textbook. I have also been quite shy about talking to others, so that is still a skill I am working on, but I have been able to have some discussions with peers about learning questions and with adults about careers and volunteer positions. These volunteer positions I asked about were with local universities and their ESL clubs/programs. Unfortunately, I found out that I would have to be an enrolled student with certain classes and qualifications to participate, but it certainly opened my mind to learning about more things I could do with my love for language.

I began researching language development and acquisition, as it was something wildly fascinating to me and could help me in my second-language learning journey. It was at this point I reached a pivotal realization: I don't want to be an interpreter anymore. I can love languages and learn them to connect to people, but I cannot see myself as a career interpreter or translator. I want to research and apply that to real-world cases of language development. After speaking with friends about this, they suggested I shadow their childhood team of speech-language pathologists. And that I did. I absolutely fell in love with the way their nonprofit clinic combined audiology and speech-language pathology. This was real-world impact--helping children develop language skills (and it didn't hurt all the little clients were adorable). I decided I wanted that. And so, I began speaking with a friend's mother, a speech-language pathologist herself, about looking into this passion as a potential career. My chosen university which I will attend this upcoming fall has a minor that I can complete in addition to my incredibly specialized research-centered major which allows me to complete all the prerequisite courses for speech-language pathology doctoral degrees. I will be seeking out shadowing, research, and internship opportunities in the coming years as I channel my passion into real-world, refined ideas.

Part of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association's 'Why A Career in CSD?' Page

I never would have gotten here if not for my year-long dedication to Korean. I never would have addressed my passion for language, nor realized the lack of specific research in topics relating to multilingual language development. And I certainly would not have developed such a determined mindset in contributing real difference to the world or being active in the communities I wish to affect. But alas, my journey with Korean (and language-learning in general!) is far from complete. I still have a plethora of textbooks to work through and knowledge yet to implant in my brain. There is still the mock TOPIK I have scheduled to take next week (I will amend this blog post-test to let you know the results). As part of my work in speech-language pathology and the minor I will complete in university, I will heavily focus on learning American Sign Language, something I really would like to start now due to my connections with the Deaf community. Learning never stops, and neither will my passion for language. 

When we were assigned to pick our Capstone Projects for the year, there were two categories we could choose from: do something for the community or learn a skill. I expected learning Korean to be strictly the latter, nothing more than my personal journey in learning a language. Though I did not progress through the material at as fast a pace as I had wished, I still understand a great deal of Korean now. I was able to practice making connections and learn from new communities. And more than anything, I was able to expand my project to understand what I need to do in the future to be active in benefitting the community through my studies and research. And I am truly grateful for the opportunity to have made these realizations about myself and what I want my life to look like.

Thank you all for taking this journey with me--I may update this blog with a post every now and then to celebrate new milestones like completing a new textbook or mastering a particularly difficult concept. 

But for now, that's a wrap on my senior Capstone Project!