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Yonsei News

[YONSEI NEWS] Giving Back to UIC: One CFA Exam at a Time

연세대학교 홍보팀 / news@yonsei.ac.kr
2013-03-12

When Park Sung-chul began studying at Underwood International College (UIC) in March 2007, he set himself one goal: to give back to the community as much as he possibly could. Inspired by Jeffery Sachs’s The End of Poverty—which he read for a UIC class—Park started reflecting on what he could do to “help the people living on the margins of our society.” Following his deliberations, Park decided, along with several fellow students, to found a student club at Yonsei dedicated to conceiving and implementing creative solutions to help the poor and disadvantaged. Together, Park and his friends raised money by selling brooches, made from used eyeglasses, to buy walking sticks for the visually impaired. For his efforts, Park was awarded Yonsei’s Blue Butterfly Scholarship, which requires that the recipient pledge to give back to the Yonsei community in the future. To fulfill this obligation, Park decided to assist fellow UIC students in obtaining their Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) certification. Park, who studied economics at UIC, now works as a consultant at Bain & Company. While a student at UIC, Park sought to enhance his credentials for a future career in high finance by attaining CFA certification. But after paying around $1000 for each of the three required CFA exams, Park realized that the hefty price tag might deter other students from getting their certification. While scholarships for CFA certification were available to students in Yonsei’s Business School, no such funding existed for UIC students. As such, Park saw an opportunity to give back to UIC. Early in 2013, Park pledged to give KRW 1 million to one CFA test-taker from UIC each year for the next ten years. To qualify, the applicant must be a UIC student under the age of 26 with a minimum GPA of 3.3/4.3. Applicants must also have passed the CFA Level 2 exam or the CFA Level 1 exam along with Levels 1 and 2 of the Financial Risk Management (FRM) exam. To apply, students need to submit transcripts, proof of passing the CFA or FRM exams, a photocopy of their ID card, a resume, and a self-introduction; the winner will then be chosen on the basis of both merit and need. The current application period runs from March 1st-14th, with the scholarship being awarded at the end of this month. In the future, the application window will be September 1st-14th, and the scholarship recipient will be announced at the end of September. The only stipulation for this scholarship is that the recipient pledge to give back to the UIC community at some point in the future. Ultimately, Park hopes that future UIC graduates will follow his lead and give back to school. His goal, he says, is to inspire at least ten other UIC alumni to donate KRW 1 million to the UIC Community.