Jaesi, daughter of Lee Dong-gook, chooses Seoul over US university

Jaesi, the eldest daughter of former footballer Lee Dong-gook, has abruptly revised her career plans just three days before her scheduled departure for New York. Instead of continuing her studies at a prestigious fashion college in the United States, she has decided to start an independent life in Seoul to gain experience outside the classroom first. Rather than a simple abandonment of studying abroad, this choice is closer to a young person who has been running faster than others due to early academic advancement deciding to slow down and redesign her own life.

Lee Soojin, Jaesi's mother, announced the news of her daughter's independence through her social media (SNS) on the 9th. Originally, Jaesi was planning to continue her remaining studies at a fashion-related university based in New York, but after a long conversation with her family just three days before her departure, she canceled her trip to New York.

The background of this decision was a realistic concern: "Is spending the next two years just for a diploma truly the best option?" Lee Soojin explained that Jaesi, who entered university two years earlier than her peers, is currently at the age of a typical college freshman but is already entering her third year of studies.

It is reported that Lee Soojin suggested to her daughter that rather than rushing her studies, it might be necessary to enter society first, work, experience failure, and go through a process of discovering what kind of studies she actually needs. Ultimately, Jaesi chose to explore new options by living independently in Seoul rather than following the set academic path in the United States.

This aligns with Jaesi's growth process. Since her childhood, Jaesi has walked a path different from the conventional educational route. Through homeschooling, she experienced an educational environment that emphasized diverse experiences and self-directed learning over the fixed competition within the institutional school system, and subsequently solidified her career path in the fashion field, which she had shown interest in.

Fashion went beyond a mere interest and led to Jaesi's actual career. In 2022, she drew attention as a model by appearing on international fashion show stages in cities like Paris and Milan, and since then, she has shown moves to broaden her understanding of the overall fashion industry beyond modeling through fashion-related studies.

In 2024, she announced her acceptance to the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in New York State, entering a new educational stage. At that time, Lee Soojin had revealed that Jaesi decided to wrap up her modeling activities to study design more deeply. FIT is a specialized fashion education institution located in Manhattan, New York, known for producing fashion giants such as Calvin Klein and Michael Kors.

In that sense, this decision can be viewed not as giving up on her career, but as a choice to experience the real world more before finalizing her career path. While maintaining the goal of studying fashion, she has essentially taken a step back from the premise that answers must be found only within the space of a university.

In particular, this choice draws more attention because Jaesi has already been following an academic process faster than her peers. Having entered university earlier than others and even experiencing the international fashion stage at a relatively early age, it seems she judged that securing time to concretize her interests and aptitudes is now more important than "graduating quickly.""

Lee Soojin also shared that as she watched her daughter's decision, she felt it was time for the role of a parent to change. Although she had always emphasized that "once children become adults, they all leave to be independent," she confessed that unexpected emotions rushed in when her daughter actually said she would live alone.

She stated that Jaesi will live alone in Seoul, managing her own meals, living expenses, and schedules, and taking responsibility for her own choices. It marks the beginning of a process where she moves away from a method where parents decide and solve things for them, and instead accepts trial and error as her own responsibility.

The part where Lee Soojin stated, "I think the time has come to practice a love that trusts her to do it alone, rather than a love that does things for her," encapsulates the core of this change. It contains the raw emotions of a parent transitioning from the stage of protecting a child to the stage of watching a child's choices.

Jaesi's change contrasts with how the Lee Dong-gook family has been known to the public. Among the five siblings whose growth alongside the family was revealed since childhood through "The Return of Superman," Jaesi has relatively early found her field of interest and built an independent domain in modeling and fashion. Now, she has entered a stage where she must handle her own life as an adult, rather than simply being the daughter of a famous sports star.

Ultimately, this decision challenges the linear formula that "entering a prestigious university equals success." For Jaesi, who has already accumulated various experiences, time spent facing the world outside of school may serve as an experimental ground to solidify her next steps.

Not boarding the plane to New York does not mean giving up on her dreams in fashion. Rather, the essence of this choice is to live independently in Seoul to test her tastes, abilities, and economic self-sufficiency, with the possibility of returning to school if necessary.

The girl whose growth was revealed through television since childhood has now become an adult managing her own life outside her parents' embrace. For Jaesi, this life in Seoul is likely to be a more realistic and demanding "life lesson" than the prestigious academic history of attending a top US university.