While most high schoolers blast out the front doors on a Friday afternoon in a frenzied rush to get home, there is always one student who discreetly stays behind. She’s willing to commit several hours to design her Latin Club’s banner, tutor underclassmen, decorate the school bulletin board, catch up with a teacher, or work on a collaborative project. These hidden moments of hardworking benefaction perfectly describe Eunji Yoo’s character to a tee.
Eunji, a senior at Peachtree Ridge, is industrious in every way. Academically, she’s challenged herself to take a rigorous AP course load since freshman year, scoring exceptionally well in many of them. Socially, Eunji works hard to forge friendships with students of all grade levels, often seen as the approachable, amicable senior striding down the hallways. Leadership-wise, she is involved with many extracurriculars; to name a few, she serves as president of the school’s UNICEF club, webmaster of our Junior Classical League, and state editor for a student-run human rights blog.
Most notably, however, she has stood resilient emotionally. When her mother was diagnosed with cancer last year, Eunji stepped up to become a leader within her family as well as in school; in between creating club meeting powerpoints, she was putting ointment on her mother’s stitches; while cramming for exams, she was cooking dinners for her two younger siblings; instead of eating lunch, she’d go to the library to work on college applications; in the short stints of alone time she had, she was teaching others U.S. History; the list goes on and on.
Fellow students describe Eunji as hard-working, honest, and reliable. Classmate Joyce Ahn admires her advanced video editing skills, a useful adroitness that will greatly help Eunji in her intended major of communications. Long-time friend Lisa Wu admits that Eunji is a seemingly ceaseless busy bee, always moving from one big project to another.
I, too, can attest to Eunji’s prowess and warm nature; through shared classes and collaboration on multiple tasks, I’ve had the pleasure of seeing her grow and thrive in a community she’s helped to shape. I know great things lie in store for this warmhearted human being, and I can’t wait to see what she does next.
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