de me:

I am "Kori", or "코리", or "кори", or "コリ", whichever you find agreeable. I consider myself an independent thinker and an academic. Aiming to avoid pretentiousness, I prefer to say simply that "I have a rich mind". Concerning my formal education, my degrees include a Master of Science in Aerospace Engineering, and a Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering. Both from the Georgia Institute of Technology. As well as an Associate of Science degree, with designations in Physics, Computer Science, Mathematics, and Forestry, from Middle Georgia College. I have an ever evolving philosophy. Among my tenets, I believe there are no dangerous ideas, that language is extremely valuable, and that passion leads to greatness. Unlike Ayn Rand, I do believe in the ethics of altruism, I donate blood quite often, and have spent time volunteering. Recently, my life goal changed from "To learn everything", to "to learn all that is inherent", if not just for the impracticality of the former, but for the (at least) more tractable nature of the latter. No matter what angle it takes, learning is the term that defines my life, learning is my life, learning is who I am.

I was born in Houston, Texas, at just the tail end of the year 1987. Nearly 1988! I'm not fond of the decade, so I take every opportunity to distance myself from it. I lived the first two years of my life in Texas, after which my parents moved to Georgia. I've lived in the Atlanta area ever since. I could have been categorized as an autodidact as a child. I was homeschooled, but I taught myself essentially everything I know (except reading), being exposed to very little structure beyond standardized tests. Science has always been my main interest, I wanted to know How, and Why. At age seven I began reading books about dinosaurs published concurrently with the film "Jurassic Park", and reading Edgar Allan Poe, I was eager to learn whatever I could. My sister (six years my senior, and the person who taught me to read) had some math and science textbooks that were of interest to me, if for no more than I wanted to see what she was struggling so much with. I liked math, and perhaps due to my becoming familiar with the concepts that her textbooks discussed, I had a feel for algebra at that age. My seventh year was the year that I believe my personality, and the basic components of my "self", really came into being. I didn't understand a lot, I certainly didn't know much about the world outside my home (politics, economics, etc...), but I knew that I didn't know. At this age, I decided to make my life goal to "learn everything".

Around the age of ten, I began keeping notebooks to write down ideas I had. I was constantly planning for the future, I wanted to do this or that, I wanted to build this thing or that thing. I recall drawing designs for a rocket I had an idea about, around the age of eleven. I had come across a basic physics book at Barnes and Noble where my mother and I would spend the summer afternoons sometimes. I had coerced her into buying it for me. Looking back at my childhood notes, I made some astonishingly accurate calculations about the mass required, and the time it would take to travel to Jupiter with a pulse-detonation matter-antimatter engine. As well as the diameter one would have to squish Jupiter, such that the Hydrogen in the core would be of equivalent density to the core of the sun. It was an idea I got from one of my favorite shows, Stargate SG-1. From the time I was eleven years old, until I started preparing for college entry exams at fourteen, I watched episodes of Stargate SG-1, Star Trek Voyager, and any show covering space and physics on -what used to be called- "The Discovery Science Channel", from around 11PM until 4AM every night. And I was even more excited when our cable provider got the NASA channel.

When I turned fourteen, as I had just finished reading "A Brief History of Time", and "Hyperspace", I happened to hear about a number of programs that would allow me to enter college at my age. This sparked an intense moment of studying for the SAT exams, which I performed, and a year later, I was accepted into the G.A.M.E.S. program at Middle Georgia College. In the year leading up to my entry into college at fifteen, I had to decide on a major. For a while I was undecided between Physics or Aerospace Engineering. Either one involved things I had an extreme interest in. However, my decision to pursue Aerospace Engineering was made based on my life goal, to "learn everything". I chose Aerospace because there was so much to be learned, the obvious classical physics, and even quantum mechanics that I would come to understand in my gas dynamics and thermodynamics courses. Aerospace offered an opportunity to learn even more about computer programming for purposes of simulation and modeling, materials science for aerospace component design, advanced mathematics all over the place, chemistry in combustion and high temperature gas dynamics, design methodology, and many other things. In a word, I chose Aerospace Engineering because it was "hard". If I might quote my favorite president from his speech at Rice University in 1962, which often puts a tear in my eye:

During my time in college, I developed an interest in more things beyond Aerospace, including religion, philosophy, politics, and language. I had a good friend who happened to be Korean, and because of her, I became interested in the Korean language and popular culture. Since then, I have taken two college courses in Korean, and began my journey into Russian and Japanese as well. I have even more recently become interested in literature, counting among my favorites "Nineteen Eighty-Four" by George Orwell, "Lolita" by Vladimir Nabokov, and "The Metamorphosis" by Franz Kafka.

This discussion is only meant to give a flavor for who and what I am. I hope that you inquire further about me by viewing the other items in my Personal section.