Senior of the Year: Colin Jung

By KEVIN THANT ‘27

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On Tuesday nights, the Assembly Hall is bustling with people. They take up the front rows, leaning back and chattering in hushed tones. There is something plainly majestic about the place—the chandelier casts a soft glow, the ceiling curves high above the red-cushioned benches, and the walls are paneled with old portraits of stern eyes and lined faces. 

The lights dim. When senior Colin Jung steps onto the stage, into the spotlight, the room quiets. To the onlookers below, Jung—in his rounded glasses and characteristically ironed suit—is as much a part of this hall as the varnished podium and the men and women who watch silently from their frames. To the onlookers, he belongs here, and nowhere else.

Hailing from Chicago, IL, Jung has lived in Webster Hall for all of his four years on campus. Beyond his work in the classroom and the Classics Department, he captains the Daniel Webster Debate Society (DWDS) and Exeter’s Mock Trial team. He is also the co-head of Catholic Exonians and Ethics Forum. As an upper, Jung was awarded the John O’Heald Debating Prize, the highest honor awarded to a debater at the Academy. After qualifying to represent the U.S. delegation at the World Individual Debate and Public Speaking Championship (WIDPSC), he placed first in the nation and fourth in the world as a debater. As a member of the A Team, Jung qualified for Mock Trial nationals last year and helped Exeter place ninth. 

It is no wonder, then, that Jung should belong in the spotlight. He excels at the podium, captivating the audience with clear argumentation and flourishes of rhetoric. His reputation certainly fits his everyday attire—what lower Lauren Lee described as “a fluffy white scarf, a professional trench coat, and a suit and pretty shoes,” and what lower Andrew Gould, on first impression, thought was appropriate for “some nerd.” Exeter knows Jung as the stoic, the debater, the attorney-to-be. 

Jung began his career in the spotlight long before coming to Exeter, having competed in various math competitions and spelling bees. His decision to come to the Academy was “really on a whim” after learning about boarding school at an eighth-grade math camp.

Once he started his prep year, Jung quickly found his calling in the humanities. “I would say that the humanities are different in two ways,” he said. “First of all, humanities are the things we live in order to learn, I suppose. They’re closer to the ultimate energy in mind.”

Jung’s peers have well observed this passion. “He has a profound appreciation for the humanities,” senior Chris Serrao said. “Colin has done a lot to get people interested in those subjects as well.”

“He has an extraordinary understanding of philosophy and the law in particular,” upper Joonyoung Heo said. “But what’s fascinating about him is that he hasn’t read a lot of philosophers at all. People assume that, since he knows so much, he must have done a lot of reading. It’s actually just that he’s come to a majority of what he thinks about the world by staring at his wall, or going on walks, and thinking things through himself. Other people might be better at telling you who wrote what and when, but Colin would have a far more intuitive understanding of what those men actually wrote about.”

In turn, Jung’s great interest in the humanities has easily translated to his extracurricular work. As a captain of DWDS and Mock Trial, he has spent hundreds of hours helping other students become better speakers and logical thinkers. 

Even beyond his managerial work on the debate board, Jung resurrected the Advanced Team during his tenure, a selected group of four students—L. Lee and Heo, alongside lower Sam Altman and upper Emma Sordi—whom he taught several times a week with talent and singular devotion.

“We’ve been training together since last spring, over the summer, and into this year, very extensively,” Altman said. “Those practices made us much better debaters, of course, but they were also a bonding experience for the team. I know the whole team has grown a lot as people and Colin’s been mainly responsible for that. He’s been able to reign us in even on our bad days.”

Indeed, Jung’s work as captain has inspired commitment and a fierce loyalty among his debaters. “In my prep fall, I hated debate so much,” L. Lee said. “I thought the co-heads were lazy and no one really cared about anything until I met Colin. He was one of the first people at this school to really believe in me as a debater and as a person.”

“He’s also one of the only people who would give up their sleep, even their own academic success, to help kids younger than him to flourish and grow,” she continued. “And that’s a sacrifice that means the world to me, and that’s why I’m so close to him. I’ll defend him to anyone about anything, because I know deep down he’s one of the kindest and strongest people I know.”

Unsurprisingly, Jung’s devotion has made for impressive results, including Exeter’s first “First Place School Award” in years at St. Paul’s and, the year following his own success at WIDSPC, Sordi’s qualification to the U.S. delegation and subsequent second-place finish in the Impromptu Speaking category.

“I’m very proud of the work I did,” Jung said. “I’m very proud of the development they’ve shown, in terms of their craft, in terms of their character. Debate was an art I was particularly good at and particularly loved doing, and I’ve been with the four of them an entire calendar year now. They mean the world to me.”

“I’ve given more than I can count—more than they know, and I’d like to keep it that way,” he continued. “But there is nothing that has taught me more about who I am, about what kind of person I am and should be, what it looks like to be someone worth looking up to, than trying my hardest to be that person for them for a year. And I have my regrets. Sometimes I wonder if I could have done a better job. But I know on the whole—I pray on the whole—I have made them into better people. And I think they’d concur.”

Jung has shown similar devotion to the Mock Trial team. 

“He was one of two team captains, but he really served as the coach,” Gould, a member of the C Team during Jung’s captaincy, said. “Throughout the whole year, he’d pull all-nighters and even miss some of his classes just to edit our material. This year he really tried to become a mentor and look after the people under his wing.”

“When I joined C Team this past year, I got to see him again in a completely different environment,” Sordi said. “But he earns and commands from his peers all the same. He’s inspired our team to work harder, and even then never as hard as he’s worked for us.”

Jung’s leadership is very much a product of his own experiences with previous captains, guided by the fine example of his predecessors. “Mock Trial was the first serious club I was a part of,” Jung said. “My time there taught me almost everything about what it means to be a leader, and what it means to be a man. I learned most of it from someone named Anderson Lynch. He was one of the first extraordinary role models I’ve had in my life, and I owe so much of what I do to him. The essence of leadership is making sacrifices at every level.”

“That could be material sacrifice—your own grades, your own opportunities,” Jung continued. “But in another sense, it’s interior sacrifice. Leadership is difficult. It takes a toll on a person emotionally, mentally, spiritually. But you must never let that toll show to the people you’re leading. You have to be a rock. If everyone were always to express their emotions, then the world would not function. It’s important that you can be someone they can burden, without having to burden them yourself. You have to carry the double portion—that’s the requirement of every leader and every man.”

This is the Colin Jung whom Exeter knows well—a confident debater and Mock Trial attorney, a talented student in the humanities, a dedicated captain with a defined philosophy of leadership. To many, then, it will come as a surprise that the club which Jung might call most his home is neither Mock Trial nor the debate society.

“My greatest personal contribution has been the Catholic Exonians club,” Jung said. “Chris Serrao and I have really revitalized it. I use it for weekly lectures about the Catholic faith, and I’ve accompanied more people than I can imagine in their journey toward that faith, in loving God as the final end. Even for those I have not explicitly encouraged, I hope the public example of my faith gives people an idea of a different way to live.”

As a cohead, Jung spends his Monday evenings this way. His work has certainly not gone unnoticed by his peers. 

“His soul burns so brightly, and it lights those around him with real exictement,” Serrao said. “When he gives lectures for Catholic Exonians, a lot of people who come are not of the faith, and they ask questions. As someone who was himself an atheist who conveted to Catholicism, he takes every question seriously, and he approaches it in a manner that shows how considerate and passionate he is about pursuing the truth and helping students feel fulfilled.”

“I’ve seen him be able to take on more responsibility,” Serrao continued. “In our prep year there were four of us, and we had very low attendance rates from lower to upper year. But when Colin came back in senior fall, he intended to change things, so he used his oratory skills to teach people about the subject he cared most about, Catholicism. A lot of students struggle with mental health. He’s struggled too, and he wants to share how you can really better yourself and ultimately find fulfillment.”

Many Exonians have attended Jung’s weekly lectures, and they’ve taken away a great deal. His oratory is as learned and impressive as it is moving. 

“It was the first time I’d gone to Catholic Exonians,” Gould said. “Colin gave this hour-long speech about religion, the meaning of life, and how religion can ground your life. He talked about his personal story and how he used religion to find meaning. It was deeply touching.”

Others shared the same experience. “It’s extremely impressive that Colin was able to convince me, an atheist, to attend any kind of religious meeting. But when I did find myself on the second floor of the church, what most amazed me was the way people listened to him. This was different even from his debate rhetoric. Dozens were there to listen to him talk about faith, what it meant to him, what it could mean to everyone there. When a hand was raised, he stopped his speech and answered every question. The room was electric with real interest, all because of Colin.”

Driving Jung’s tireless commitment to Catholic Exonians, of course, is his tireless devotion to Catholicism. He described converting to the faith in his first year at the Academy. Since then, he has spent a great deal of time defining his relationship with religion, and how his external self reflects it.

“There were two things that made me sure of my faith,” Jung said. “Part of it was intellectual, that no other worldview can adequately explain the entire world, that science cannot explain. There are things about the world and the human experience for which the most sensible explanation, in my opinion, is Catholicism. It’s peerless in its intellectual rigor and the depth of its theology, which has been developed by minds much brighter than mine for over 2,000 years, and has not changed throughout then.”

“On the personal side, I was deeply unhappy,” Jung continued. “I found that nothing in the entire world, no matter how hard I tried, would not bring me happiness because my heart did not want those things in the end. Even if it would take them for a little while, it would rest. It would always feel anxious. Every man’s heart is made to love God, and therefore it will restless until it finds that love. It’s the kind of thing that one can’t find except by experience, which is why there has to be a leap at the beginning. But you have nothing to lose, because everyone who’s found the Catholic faith has testified to what I’ve testified—that it soothes the anxieties and closes the wounds of the heart in such a way that no other earthly thing can.”

Ultimately, Jung’s faith is the link that explains just why—and how—he is so genuinely devoted to the principle of “putting God and my neighbor before myself.” 

“My process of religious introspection is mostly prayer,” Jung said. “But in terms of external things, it’s about living in community and going about your responsibilities. That’s what makes a good person. I’d say this year in particular, the practice of leading and mentoring people has made me terrifically aware of my own faults and my own shortcomings. It makes you intimately aware of those aspects of yourself which you’d hate for someone to emulate.”

“That’s it—that’s the pride of my time at Exeter,” he continued. “There’s nothing else that makes me happier, more fulfilled, than to know that I’ve touched human lives in a way they’ll remember forever, because I was touched the same way, too. It’s worth more than anything else, that opportunity to make someone better—to really love someone. You love someone entirely selflessly because all you want to see is their happiness and their growth as human beings. It’s an opportunity I’ve been able to have at a young age, and I’m so very blessed and grateful for it. It’s not something for which I’d trade the world. 

And, indeed, if one thing is made clear by the people who’ve known him best, it’s that Jung has been true to his word every day. The values which he carries, and carries with such conviction, have naturally translated to his treatment of all those around him. 

“You can call him at any hour of the night—I mean any hour of the night,” Altman said. “The guy does not sleep. And he’ll talk to you. He’ll talk to you for hours if you need to. I certainly wouldn’t be in the same place without him, and I have a lot to owe to him for that.”

“Some people would say his demeanor is pretentious,” Altman continued. “He can seem very serious, as if he’s constantly worried aobut everything. The truth is that he’s a very carefree person who knows, at the same time, what it means to work hard. He knows what it means to have respect for himself and the work that he does, and that’s ultimately what his legacy is. And I think that’s what so many people appreciate him for. In the chaos of Exeter, you’ve got people who are barely staying afloat, and then there’s Colin, able to care for 20, 30, 40 other people.”

“The example he sets for others is extraordinary,” Serrao said. “I think everyone around him is, at the bare minimum, moved to respond. He makes statements and he tries to move hearts, and I think that’s an amazing thing he has the ability to do. His Catholic faith informs how he interacts with everyone, and he’s built a legacy off of helping all those around him. And he really does care about supporting everyone on this campus, as a way of giving back for all the help he’s received himself.”

“Funnily enough, I don’t regret not having known him longer,” lower Jinmin Lee said. “You need to swim and drown in the water and search your way frantically in the forest and have no idea what you’re doing. That’s what makes the light you see at the end so special. Until you understand your life is a mess, it’s not very meaningful for someone to guide you. If someone’s holding your hand from the beginning, it’s not worth anything. It’s only through struggle that you realize what matters. So my life was a mess, and Colin came at just the right time.”

And, at the end of the day, that is what Jung has intended for his legacy. “I hope my greatest achievement at Exeter is that I’ve made some of my peers better people, either in the present or the future—that they’ll be happy because they’re better people. The Greeks didn’t find a difference between goodness and happiness because there wasn’t one to find. That’s what I want—that in my four years here, I’ve made at least one person’s life happier than it was before.”

On the second floor of Phillips Church, up the winding staircase and behind a set of heavy wooden doors, there is a dimly lit room with a carpeted floor and the faint smell of wood. Here there are no spotlights—here there is no podium, no paneled stage, no red-cushioned seats or warm chandeliers. You even have to take off your shoes at the door.

But this is where Jung can be found on many nights, standing before the stained windows or seated by the empty fireplace. There might be a dozen or so people there, watching, listening. This is what he has made of his time at Exeter—this is where he is at rest.