There are important moments in life when you receive unexpected opportunities. This is how my story at Ewha GSIS began. I applied knowing there would be no other university where I could fit better. I had a dream but lacked the resources to achieve it. I went through difficult times assimilating that I should probably give up, but a call from Miss Kwon, my faculty manager, changed the course of my professional and personal career. On that particular call, she told me that I was chosen by Ewha Womans University to receive a special scholarship.
My name is Laura Aparicio and I’m doing my master’s majoring in Development Cooperation at the Graduate School of International Studies (GSIS). I was fortunate enough to be the only recipient of Ewha Sarang Scholarship, which covers my full tuition and stipends. Now that I am in my last semester, I can share with you how this opportunity has changed my life and how It might change the lives of many people across the globe.
How Did this Opportunity Change My Life?
Before coming to Ewha GSIS I perceived a notable distinction between academia and practice, but those barriers broke during my master’s degree. In our classes, me and my colleagues engaged actively in discussions with practitioners in different fields. I connected with directors of specialized agencies of the United Nations, cooperation agencies, civil society organizations, and private sector corporations.
Thanks to this diversity of opportunities, some of my classmates and I joined the UNHCR youth conversation on Refugee Day. Some of us also attended the presentation of the report on the economic development transition of Korea by the World Bank Group. And I was lucky enough to have a special meeting about stakeholder engagement at Plan International’s office in Korea.
Opportunities to engage in discussions came from different settings. Ewha is a university that hosts and leads discussions on sustainable development. As a student, I attended several conferences organized by the university. My greatest memories were built up in the Trans-Pacific Dialogue of 2022 and 2023 where I met Mr. Ban Ki Moon twice. All these opportunities together brought me closer to the field from a position that I had never done before in my life.
These amazing experiences do not happen only with external actors. I am a strong believer that future leaders are in the classroom learning beside me. Some of my colleagues come directly from academia, and others from the private, public, or tertiary sector. Since Ewha GSIS hosts the Ewha-KOICA program, we also learn with public officials of developing countries. I am lucky enough to say that I have great friends from all regions of the world. That diversity allowed me to intellectually expand my horizons. It added complexity to the understanding of the drivers of sustainable development.
But what would our program be without our amazing professors? They encouraged me to ask relevant research questions, fill gaps in the literature, and provide solutions for practitioners. Thanks to the amazing training I received, I published my class paper about poverty and development in an ESCI pre-review journal. I also shared the results of a paper on how banana companies and governments in Latin America are aligning towards the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals at the 8th Student Conference in Global Social Responsibility. Most importantly, I started my journey as a researcher in the Sustainability Research Laboratory under Professor Hannah Jun’s supervision, alongside my PhD senior Hui Zhang.
Our lab sums up my academic life at Ewha. It has been a personal and professional learning space where we ask questions that break barriers of knowledge. All of us bring the perspective of our concentrations. Hui is researching sustainable supply chains and the intersection between trade policy and corporate sustainability since she is doing her PhD in International trade. I am exploring success factors in stakeholder engagement for sustainability between NGOs and businesses from the development perspective. We do it under the supervision of our professor, who is an expert in international business. This environment has helped me to grow as a researcher and as a human being in many ways that I cannot describe.
My personality has also evolved in the last two years. Learning in a diverse, safe environment where my ideas are promoted helped to develop my potential. I was born and raised in Colombia, a wonderful country, but even with the support of a lovely family and great friends, the contextual conditions made me feel insecure and doubt the potential I could achieve. That insecurity faded during my stay at Ewha. Now I am more ambitious. I believe that great ideas can only be created in an environment that promotes them. I am convinced that Ewha is the right place for anyone who decides to use all the tools it offers to build that ambition.
Ewha, Where Change Begins: How do I Hope to Make Impact?
Being a recipient of a scholarship goes beyond achieving personal success. I am aware that the opportunities I have are unique and limited, for this reason, I hope to become a tool to extend the knowledge I receive to the places it cannot reach. The biggest step I want to take, using all the tools the program offered me, is to help build better systems and programs in developing countries.
During my master’s degree, I took specialized courses in multistakeholder coordination for sustainable development. This is how I forged my research area, with a deep desire to create better outcomes in alliances between multiple stakeholders in developing countries. One of the findings of my master’s thesis shows the need and relevance of the topic, but the lack of studies. Therefore, I saw an opportunity to become one of the pioneers in the field.
This is not just an individual dream, but an institutional one. As scholarship recipients, we must commit to the people who do not receive these opportunities and to those who have believed in our potential. I feel that I must think about how we can create a better impact in the world while helping the university grow so that it continues to be an epicenter of sustainable development. I want to see Ewha grow forward. That is why it is my dream to create knowledge on behalf of the university and through it create proximity with allies in developing countries.
Being a scholarship recipient built in me a very strong attachment to the university and an even greater commitment to sustainable development. I will always wonder what they saw in me to give me a special scholarship to study in a special program. I don’t have a clear answer, because there are many incredibly talented people in different parts of the world. But I firmly believe that, since I was the fortunate one, I must carry my commitment to the field, to my department, and to Ewha wherever I go. Through this opportunity, they improved my life and planted the seed to improve the lives of many other people.
Ewha GSIS 