For her senior project, Steph chose to learn to read, write and speak Korean. Working with her project supervisor, Japanese teacher Kumiko Sakamoto, Steph spent three weeks diving into this new language. Here's what she has to say about the experience:

"I focused my mornings on learning the actual language. The afternoons were spent learning a piece of Korean culture, whether it be traditional clothing, pop culture, games, etc. In four weeks, I had improved a lot; I held an actual, non-scripted conversation with a native Korean speaker (he just came from Korea), and I was able to introduce myself entirely in Korean! My motivation for this senior project was the fact that I had finished the AP Japanese course last year (junior year), and wanted to learn a language on my own. I was then introduced to Korean Pop, or K-Pop music. It was my love for learning languages and my desire to immerse myself into new cultures that really had me working harder to learn the language. I can safely say that Ms. Sakamoto's course ignited the spark for my love of East Asian cultures."