EPT
Ziggy here. I've suddenly felt the urge to post some trivia about myself, as I've been part of the StarCraft community for far too long merely remaining in the shadows.
Long story short, in 2010, as a 13 year old, I decided 'Hey, I want to be a professional StarCraft player and compete on Korean television!'. Good thinking, 13 year old me. Ambitious. Quite commendable.
I believe the first contact I had with the game dates back to 2005. Unfortunately my memory fails me anytime I attempt to recall anything from before I became a sentient being, rather than a mindless eight year old.
Six years later, here I am, merely a top 50 GM on the EU ladder in SC2. Things haven't been going as I had hoped they would. The highlights of my career are: defeating White-Ra at DH Valencia 2015 and getting smashed by sOs in Stockholm (the same year).
I'm even more hopeless at SC1. I'm only made for watching Brood War.
At some point I realised perhaps there's more to professional StarCraft than just becoming a Bonjwa. I contemplated trying to steer my career towards commentating matches. Being bilingual certainly plays to my advantage. However, the abundance of casters makes it nearly impossible to try and pull out all the stops.
Shortly afterwards, another idea sprang to my mind. Writing articles and reporting current affairs is certainly an appealing occupation. I've joined the SC editorial crew at GosuGamers and hopefully an article of my creation will soon see the light of day.
Now, not to burble on, I'll get straight to story of me as a 2nd year undergraduate at the University of Warsaw, the department of Korean Studies.
As I've mentioned a few sentences earlier, my initial plan was to go to Korea and succeed as a professional StarCraft player. That involved me doing so before the end of high school. The infallibe plan conjured up by the mind of a thirteen year old unfortunately had certain flaws. First of all, it put all my eggs into one basket. Second of all, it didn't work.
As the date of my A-Levels drew nearer, doubt made its way into my mind and panic ensued.
May 2015. No exam preparations done. No univeristy plans either. Perfect.
Luckily, I pride myself in excelling at dealing with improptu situations. If McGyver's problems hovered around the subject of passing his maths and physics A-Levels, he'd be proud. Having received my final scores, I seriously pondered the idea of going for a gap year and trying to practice even harder. This time a dose of reason helped me make up my mind. The skill just wasn't there and I knew that no matter how stringent and draconian the practice it simply wouldn't yield any results.
And then it struck me. Hey, I am fairly decent at languages. I like StarCraft. Koreans like StarCraft.
Initially I was supposed to study in London and indeed I was accepted to the School of Oriental and African Studies next to Russel Square. Regrettably, I couldn't afford the tuition fees and the living expense in London was absolute murder, so I settled for the University of Warsaw. At least my daily commute doesn't take as much as it would in England. Feels good to have a renowned educational insitution in your hometown.
Just to dispel any air of discontent - I'm fairly happy with my choice. The university happens to be one of the best as far as Korean Studies are concerned and a sense of progression certainly accompanies my lectures.
I'll have to submit my Bachelor's Thesis next year. None of my colleagues have yet set their mind on a specific topic, save for myself. I knew I'd be writing about StarCraft. Now I'm in the process of coming up with an appropriate subject. I do have a few in mind, hopefully I'll get to share them in my next post.
Cheers, folks!
I might consider going there for a master's programme, still don't know. It's such a shame there are no student exchange programmes set up between my uni and any in Korea. 
