Yonsei Student Achieves Top Scores on Foreign Affairs National Examination Park Ggonnip, who came on top among the highly competitive Foreign Affairs National Examination this year, expressed surprise at her outstanding score: “I was really very worried when the results for the second round were announced. I had no expectations that my score would be so high.” Park, who had failed at last year’s exams in the first round, worked hard for another year to achieve such brilliant results. Park is currently taking a semester off from Yonsei’s Department of Economics. “I visited Norway as an exchange student for a semester in 2005, and then stayed in Spain for four months to study Spanish. This experience made me decide to become a diplomat, and I started preparing for the exams the next year.” Continuing her childhood interest in the environment, Park participated in environmental groups in college and hopes to continue in the area as a diplomat. “We are approaching 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol on global warming will expire. I want to participate in creating another agreement in this area. I am also interested in the yellow dust from China which causes severe problems in Korea every year.” Regarding the beef negotiation between Korea and the U.S., Park expressed frustration. “We started out on the wrong foot, and this weakened our footing for future talks, making it difficult for Korea to achieve many of our objectives. Many of the people who participated in study groups for the third round of the exams felt the same way. Currently, Korea’s diplomatic power is relatively weak, compared to our economic and military power. We need to turn our eyes from the major countries to South America and Africa.” Regarding her current success, Park added that her father Park Jin-Hyun’s optimistic support and her mother Jo Yoon-Soon’s belief in her was a great help.