Ryan Sim’s story is one of resilience and adaptation.

Class of 2030

After Struggling to Support Himself in High School, Freshman Ryan Sim Is Ready to Chart His Own Course

Questrom student has moved across the globe twice and lived on his own. Now, he’s excited for his next journey

This fall, 3,706 freshmen begin their careers at Boston University. The Class of 2030. They hail from 87 countries and 48 states, as well as the District of Columbia. Over the coming weeks, we’ll bring you some of their stories. We begin our series with Ryan Sim (Questrom’30).

Ryan Sim is only a college freshman, but he’s already led multiple lives.

Born in the United States and raised largely in South Korea, Sim became an expert in moving between cultures, communities, and languages at an early age. It’s a skill set he hopes will serve him well as an incoming student in the Questrom School of Business.

“Going back and forth between countries opened my eyes to see things differently and learn how to adapt and be more resilient,” says Sim (Questrom’30). “I was meeting more people but also leaving them more often, and that taught me how to approach people, how to be more sociable, and how to be part of a community that wasn’t mine until [I moved into it].”

After spending his first eight years in State College, Pennsylvania, his parents moved the family to Busan, South Korea where he lived for most of his life before moving alone back to the US during his junior year of high school. He lived on his own, working two jobs to pay for rent and food while he finished his high school education.

The transition was tough for Sim. His parents had raised him to speak Korean, but he didn’t know how to read or write the language. Starting school there, he was met with confused glances from his classmates.

“I’m Korean American and I’m fully Korean, so they were like, ‘Why can’t you read or write Korean?” Sim says. “It taught me how to adapt quickly and do stuff on my feet.” 

The initial disconnect he felt from the culture quickly faded as he learned the language and became a part of the community. He forged close friendships, performed with the International Youth Symphony Orchestra, and, in high school, founded Global Affairs Magazine, which focused on enhancing political literacy among the student body.

Sim had a full—and fulfilling—life in Busan. But in 2024, he moved again, back to State College. His parents had decided he should finish his high school education in the US in order to give him a better chance of attending an American university.

“I had to leave my family, my parents, my friends,” Sim says. “It was quite hard.”

He moved in with his aunt and uncle and quickly realized that State College, with a population of around 40,000, was a far cry from Busan, a bustling city of 3.3 million people. The lack of late night restaurants and public transportation was jarring. 

At the same time, the opportunities at State College Area High School, where his class size was larger than his entire South Korean school, excited him.

In 2025, Sim, a rising high school senior, had just found his footing when his life was once again disrupted. His aunt and uncle moved to Texas, and he was left on his own. At 18 years old, he not only had to find an apartment, but figure out how he could afford to pay for rent and food.

“My school was very helpful because they had a whole support system for me,” Sim says. “They helped out with giving me options of where I could stay and where I could live, and eventually I was able to find a 12-month lease where I lived for the rest of my senior year.”

That summer, Sim worked two jobs, one at Target and one at a local restaurant. He continued working 25 hours a week through the academic year. But he still found time for extracurriculars. He became president of his school’s National Honor Society chapter, worked in student government, and interned with Seaside Sustainability, a Massachusetts-based environmental education and conservation nonprofit.

Through it all, his focus on academic excellence never faltered. He’s entering Questrom as a QuestBridge scholar, a program focused on giving low-income students with high academic achievement and stories of personal resilience an opportunity at American universities.

As he begins his journey at BU, Sim reflects that it was his experience founding Global Affairs Magazine in high school that sparked a passion for leadership and community that all of the ups and downs of his life have only strengthened. 

“Business was something that could tie everything together for me, in terms of actually starting a career, making something of my own, and building my own community out of it,” Sim says. “This is such a new environment that I’ll be able to throw myself into.”