ACE

The ACE Fellowship stands for “Action for Clean Environment,” and I truly believe that through the activities and initiatives we learn and experience through the program, I have gained a broader perspective on the world and the problems that require fixing. This program is essentially a space for students to engage with each other in a harkness like learning environment where they can all contribute their own ideas and bounce off each other's thoughts. For our first meeting, we were told to write an essay about the environmental topic or aspect that intrigued us the most before we came to class and during the time we met, everyone shared their essay points and we did a debate style discussion where one team would try and counter comment the other team’s points. This personally gave me a deeper insight into the general topic and made me broaden my point of view.

ACE

Also, we all individually visited eco-friendly shops that are striving to create more sustainable products with eco-friendly packaging, and explored throughout the city and discovered places that I never thought I would. Even though we could not visit as a group due to the increase of COVID-19 cases in Seoul, my mom, brother and I visited a small store where we found items such as elephant Doug notebook, personalized custom body, and skincare product area where you can buy a reusable container and fill it with the product of your choice and later on you are able to come back and refill your bottle. I thought that this was such a cool idea because, firstly, it saves the waste of plastic bottles but also there is a huge selection of products you can choose from so you are not even restricted.

Also, in the store, they had a video playing of the mission statement and their goals with this shop and through that, I was able to learn a lot about the environment and what people are already doing to help limit global warming and our waste footprint. Ultimately, the ACE fellowship program has been a great experience for me and with the two years I have done it I have made great friends and gained insight on various topics.