Seongheon Yoon: ‘I appreciate that Arts & Sciences allowed me to balance my qualitative and quantitative skills’

Seongheon Yoon 

Economics & Information Science

Seoul, South Korea 

Why did you choose Cornell?

I was intrigued by the vast diversity of academic careers that I could pursue at Cornell. As a senior at high school, I was interested in many different areas of study including anthropology, economics, business, and law. I believed that I could explore all of these areas across Cornell's seven undergraduate schools and figure out what I would really want to dig into.

What are the most valuable skills you gained from your Arts & Sciences education?

I appreciate that my Arts & Sciences education allowed me to balance my qualitative and quantitative skills. Before college, I always thought of my self as a "humanities" or "social sciences" person and couldn't imagine taking quantitative classes. However, through classes like statistics, econometrics, and data science that I (not so willingly) took to fulfill the requirements, I could learn the power and beauty of quantitively analyzing data to support qualitative arguments. Also, many humanities classes that I took for Arts & Sciences requirements and my Spanish minor greatly helped me to improve my skills in critical reading and writing, which I believe will provide ongoing help throughout my professional and personal life.

What have you accomplished as a Cornell student that you are most proud of, either inside the classroom or otherwise? 

My honors thesis in economics, which attempts to simulate the contagion of risks across banks using network theory. It was an opportunity for me to combine what I learned from my two majors, economics and information science, into a single work. I am also grateful for the great help I received for this project from many faculty members, including Professors Eleonora Patacchini, Gregory Besharov, and David Easley from the economics department and Professor Arpita Ghosh from information science.