One in a Billion...

Alexandria and Amanda at the Seoul Foreign School (Thanks for the tour, Ben!)

Amanda is aspiring to be an architect and is diligently preparing for college admission. She has been getting awesome grades...3.9 average...and putting together a great sketch book and portfolio. During the school year, Amanda took a tour to IIT in Chicago. Though she is worried about her SAT and ACT, Amanda is thinking she might follow in the footsteps of alumni like Mies van der Rohe and Helmut Jahn.


Professor 이건표 (Kun-pyo Lee), Dean of the Industrial Design Program, KAIST, South Korea.
Photo via KAIST, HCIDL

Amanda is looking at other schools too, RISD, McGill, etc. ...earlier this summer we took a trip to KAIST, here in Korea. There, she had the honor of meeting the Dean of Industrial Design, Professor 이건표 (Kyun-pyo Lee) (a distinguished alumni of the Institute of Design at IIT). He was gracious enough to take Amanda to lunch and give her some words of wisdom. He is not only a great design champion, but a great human being as well. Professor Lee really did not have extra time to meet us, but as he told us, he believes there are billions of people on this earth and meeting Amanda was a once in a billion opportunity. I believe he is correct...we really should treat everyone we meet like a one in a billion chance...

I expect great things will happen for Professor Lee. What an inspiration...I hope Amanda will look back on this summer as a turning point in her life.