I didn't start out planning to be a mathematician.
In college, I majored in business, originally intending to become a lawyer. It wasn’t until my junior year that I took my first real math class, and fell completely in love with it. 

Before college, I took the Korean SAT twice (an exam held only once a year), and during college, I double-majored in business and mathematics, cramming in as many advanced math courses as I could while completing the demanding business curriculum.

After graduation, I spent a year in a master’s program, more focused on enjoying life than preparing for research before starting my PhD.
It took some exploration during my PhD as well, but I eventually found my real passion in mean-field limits, kinetic theory, and interacting particle systems. 

Because of these twists and turns, I often say my "math age" feels more like someone born around 2000–2002.

I believe that geodesics are elegant in geometry, but in life, richness often grows in the deviation; in the curvature of choices, the detours of doubt, and the climb back after descent. What matters is not speed or directness, but whether the path was yours, deeply and consciously chosen.

Everyone’s timeline is different, and what matters most is not how fast you start, but how deeply you grow.