Senior of the Year: Julie Chung
Three-year senior Julie Chung epitomizes the definition of a successful and involved Exonian. She is the co-head and founder of clubs on campus that seek to establish social justice, a proctor in Dunbar Hall and one of the early inductees of the Cum Laude society. However, her achievements don’t end there, as she is also an outstanding student in both the realms of STEM and humanities courses. She is known around campus for her determination, empathy and generosity, and she is valued highly by her friends, club members and teachers.
Audre Lorde, a Caribbean-American social activist once said, “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” This quote encompasses much of who Chung is today. While she is a driven member of the Exeter community, she sees the value in spending time helping herself, something particularly pertinent to Exonians.
Originally uninformed about the opportunities that boarding school could offer her, Chung went through middle school interested solely in science. However, during her sixth grade year at her middle school in Buena Park, Calif., two of her friends from eighth grade, Savannah Gardner and Amy Wang, two Exeter alumni, introduced her to the idea of traveling across the country to follow her scientific passions. Through the encouragement of her eighth-grade English teacher and countless hours of self-driven research, Chung finally decided to apply, at first interested in specifically the offering of the Biology 470 fruit fly genetics course.
“Julie is incredibly intelligent, empathetic and generous. I cannot emphasize enough how much of a wonderful human being she is. In my mind, there is no one quite like her at Exeter.”
However, she did not receive an acceptance letter from the Academy that year because, she explained, she was unprepared for the application process in general. “I had no idea what I was doing on the application,” Chung said. Instead, she spent her ninth grade year at her local public school, and it was there that she came to understand the incredible opportunities that Exeter could provide. After understanding the process in its entirety, she applied the next year and was accepted as a new lower.
Chung remembers the first class that stood out to her—a lower fall English course with Todd Hearon. There her interest for writing was sparked, and she described that he, as well as the other class members, taught her to really appreciate the possibilities of working with the English language, a change from her already established passion for science. “It was the first time I was really encouraged to write,” she said. “I never knew I could write and that I liked writing. During my lower fall English class with Mr. Hearon, I realized how magical English could be.”
However, during that same year, Chung’s love of language matured from a budding interest into a passion. With motivation from former opinions editor of The Exonian, Zoha Qamar, Chung found herself frequently writing op-ed pieces for The Exonian, voicing her thoughts on ways to improve the campus as well as issues that involved her identity and the identity of many others on campus.
While Chung later became an opinions editor for The Exonian’s 137th editorial board, succeeding Qamar, her writing did not stop there. Through the pieces that she continued to write and discussions that she had with close friends and mentors, Chung realized her interest not only for writing, but for social justice and informing others of some the problems she saw on campus and in the global community. “I wrote about the things I was passionate about, and I was involved in the things I was passionate about,” she said. “So in that sense, it’s all connected.”
Chung began regularly attending club meetings of Amnesty International and Feminist Union, places where she could explore the ideas she had and glean different perspectives from other members. She feels that both of these clubs not only helped keep her up-to-date on the issues that affect areas outside the “Exeter bubble” but also allowed her to look critically at the Exeter campus, all while becoming more well-read on the nature of these issues themselves.
History instructor Erik Wade, Chung’s American History 332 teacher, served on a panel with her and was reminded of how mature, insightful and well-read she was. “It was impressive and not surprising to hear how well-read she was beyond Exeter texts,” he said. “It felt like I was on the panel with a colleague, not one of my students.”
During Chung’s upper spring, after devoting lots of time and effort in both of these clubs, she became co-head of each of them. Many of the clubs’ members see Chung as the perfect co-head, since often she not only looks at posed questions from many perspectives but also asks thought-provoking questions of her own. Upper Kelly Lew, one of Chung’s close friends, said, “She is direct and forthright, often jolting people from their comfort zones, while remaining extremely thoughtful and open-minded.”
As Chung’s passion for social justice matured, she continued her other work, but also focused on her identity, founding both BAPI (Bicultural Asians and Pacific Islanders) and GenEx, a support system for first-generation or low-income students who may find themselves at a disadvantage while pursuing higher education. Lew, who also attends this club, feels that Chung’s experience as a first-generation student herself allowed Chung to help many others on a more personal level, as she often explains her own story and details how she dealt with the world of standardized testing and summer programs.
In all of her involvements regarding social justice, Chung’s most important contribution is her ability to push beyond simply discussing the issues and create concrete results. This drive and motivation is one that enables Chung to establish all of her clubs as “meaningful and substantial organizations,” Lew said.
This mindset of concrete change was one that Chung imagined earlier in her Exeter career when she was first attending Fem Club and Amnesty International. After this initial experience, she vowed to bring this same focus to all of her projects in the future. “People often forget about the acting part of activism,” she said. “From these clubs, I’ve learned to be a better activist and that it’s not enough to just talk about these things. You have to act upon the words that you’re preaching.”
While Exeter’s classes provoked Chung’s love of language, she still managed to foster her love of science and math. During her upper year, she completed her former goal of being accepted into and taking the Biology 470 elective, as well receiving perfect scores on both the SAT II math level 2 and molecular biology exams without any formal tutoring.
Besides the work Chung does regarding her passion for social justice and STEM research, Chung is an exceptional student academically, being one of the 18 seniors whose grade point average was in the top five percent of their class.
However, her academic confidence did not always exist in the same form as it does now. She remembers both her father and her thinking that she would not be able to thrive academically at a school like Exeter. “I had really great grades at my old public high school, but I also thought that the school was too easy,” she explained. When she arrived at Exeter as a new lower, she found equal success, but didn’t realize that her outstanding performance was not, in fact, average.
Chung, despite achieving great academic success, was not, as she said, “greedy for grades and grade-crazy since my parents really didn’t expect that I would excel at Exeter.” However, as she continued her Exeter career, she and her parents realized that her performance had placed her near the top of the class. She attributes this accomplishment to the incredible learning environment that Exeter offered her.
“I think I just got these grades because I realized what a precious opportunity I had to receive this education and made sure I took full advantage of that,” she said. “I was just amazed at how wonderful the teachers were and relished the insightful discussions we had in class, so really my grades just reflected the genuine love I had for Exeter’s education.”
From the beginning of her time here, Chung’s adviser, Spanish instructor Ellen Glassner, saw her potential to prosper both academically and socially in the community due to her determined yet exceedingly friendly personality. “The openness, enthusiasm and easy smile that were evident during that first meeting, I trusted, would allow her to adapt to life here quickly,” she said. “And in her steady and gently determined way she has found great success here.”
As a senior and proctor in Dunbar Hall, Chung also hopes to welcome and encourage her dormmates like her proctors did for her. “The proctors in the dorm were just so supportive of me and really made the difference between me living in a dorm and me living in a home,” she said. “I especially wanted to be part of that and give back because I remember how much I was given my first year.”
Chung translates her concern with giving back to the community and the people that nurtured her into all of the things that she does, including being a good friend and person. “Julie is incredibly intelligent, empathetic and generous. I cannot emphasize enough how much of a wonderful human being she is. In my mind, there is no one quite like her at Exeter,” said Lew. “I’ll miss her cozy room with an open hammock ready for me whenever I need it. I’ll miss her bright smile, which many people say is very distinctive and often makes their days better. I’ll miss the way that I can talk to her anytime, whether it be in her room or at D-hall, and she’ll listen, really listen, while thinking and understanding.”