Ha Ji-won Was My Classmate — And It Nearly Broke Me

When history lecturer Seol Min-seok recently revisited his university years on television, the story he told wasn't quite what audiences expected. The man who has spent years making Korean history thrilling and digestible for millions of viewers admitted something deeply personal: being classmates with Ha Ji-won and Yoo Ji-tae didn't inspire him. It nearly crushed him.

Speaking on a broadcast, Seol recalled his time at Dankook University's Department of Theater and Film with a kind of rueful honesty that resonated far beyond entertainment circles. His time in those halls, surrounded by people who would go on to become two of Korea's most celebrated actors, forced him into a reckoning that ultimately changed the direction of his life.

Eight Attempts, One Acceptance — and a Shocking Discovery

The path Seol Min-seok took to Dankook University's Theater and Film department was anything but easy. He failed university entrance exams seven consecutive times before finally gaining admission on his eighth attempt — entering the program at the age of 25, years older than most of his classmates. After years of relentless effort and repeated rejection, he described the moment of acceptance as feeling like his entire life had turned a corner. He was certain that success was now simply a matter of time.

What he found when he arrived shattered that certainty entirely.

"I thought that once I got into university, my life would be successful," Seol recalled. "But hell was waiting for me." The program he entered was full of people with extraordinary natural gifts — people who seemed to embody everything he had been working toward without any of the struggle. Among his classmates were two individuals who would eventually become some of the most recognized faces in Korean entertainment: Ha Ji-won and Yoo Ji-tae.

Yoo Ji-tae, who later became known for acclaimed films including Old Boy and the drama Designated Survivor: 60 Days, was actually Seol's junior at the university. Ha Ji-won, who would go on to star in hit dramas like Secret Garden, Empress Ki, and Hwajung, was a classmate whose presence left a lasting impression — though not an immediately encouraging one.

What It Was Really Like Sitting Next to Ha Ji-won

Seol Min-seok described the experience with a candor that made audiences laugh and wince in equal measure. "There were too many talented people around me," he said. "I was sitting in class with Yoo Ji-tae. Was I as handsome as Yoo Ji-tae? Was I as pretty as Ha Ji-won?" The questions were rhetorical, and the answer was obvious even to him at the time.

Rather than dwelling on bitterness, Seol transformed his feelings of inadequacy into something more valuable: observation. Faced with peers who seemed to have natural advantages he simply did not possess, he began to pay close attention to what actually separated those who would eventually succeed from those who would not. And what he saw surprised him.

Ha Ji-won and Yoo Ji-tae, for all their natural gifts, were not coasting. They were working. Seol described Yoo Ji-tae in particular as someone who was "almost living at the school" — present constantly, dedicated beyond what was required, taking the craft seriously in a way that extended well beyond mandatory class hours. Ha Ji-won demonstrated the same quality.

"They were so dedicated," Seol said. "Ji-tae practically lived at school. In the end, it's the sincere and dedicated people who succeed." Coming from someone who had spent years grinding through failed entrance attempts, the observation carried particular weight. He had learned perseverance the hard way. What he saw in his famous classmates was that perseverance in a different form — not the desperation of someone trying to get in the door, but the discipline of someone already inside who refused to take anything for granted.

The Lesson Two K-Drama Stars Taught a Future Educator

For Seol Min-seok, the experience at Dankook University ultimately catalyzed a shift in direction. He began working part-time as a tutor and instructor, discovering through that work that he had a gift not for performance but for explanation — for making complicated, dusty subjects come alive for audiences who had previously found them impenetrable. Korean history, which had long been presented in classrooms as a sequence of dates and dynasties to be memorized, became in Seol's hands something visceral, funny, and deeply human.

He built an audience slowly and then, suddenly, everywhere. His lectures sold out auditoriums. His books became bestsellers. Television programs sought him out. He became, in a very different way from his famous classmates, one of the most recognizable figures in Korean popular culture — a man whose face appears on screens across the country not because he acts, but because he teaches with the energy and charisma of someone who genuinely loves his subject.

The irony is not lost on observers: the man who once felt intellectually and physically outmatched in a room full of future stars eventually became a star of his own kind. And the framework he took from that experience — that genuine dedication and sincerity matter more than natural gifts — has become something of a personal philosophy that he returns to regularly in interviews and public appearances.

For fans who have been following Ha Ji-won's recent resurgence — she is currently starring in the ENA drama Climax, her first television appearance in four years, and just made headlines for attending the BTS WORLD TOUR 'ARIRANG' concert — Seol's story offers an interesting piece of context. The actress who made her classmate feel inadequate has never stopped working. The dedication he witnessed in those university halls appears to have been no accident.

Why This Story Keeps Coming Back

Seol Min-seok's account of his university years has circulated before — he shared versions of it on programs including MBC's Make My Heart Beat — but it has found renewed attention in recent days alongside the broader wave of interest in Ha Ji-won sparked by her BTS concert appearance. In Korean internet culture, where personal histories of famous people are regularly excavated and re-examined, a story that places two beloved figures in the same university classroom at a formative moment carries particular appeal.

There is also something universally resonant about Seol's admission of inadequacy. His willingness to say plainly that being around talented people made him feel small — and then to articulate what he learned from watching them up close — speaks to an experience that most people understand from their own lives. The distance between feeling outmatched and finding your own lane is one of the central dramas of early adulthood, and Seol Min-seok navigated it in a room full of people who would become icons.

Ha Ji-won is currently riding a wave of renewed public affection. Her return to television in Climax has been warmly received, and her appearance at the BTS concert — where she was photographed backstage with V and Jungkook — generated headlines across Korea and internationally. The image of a beloved actress holding a lightstick in the stands, fangirling with the same enthusiasm as any other fan, endeared her to a whole new generation of viewers.

For Seol Min-seok, watching a former classmate continue to thrive across decades in the entertainment industry probably comes with complicated feelings — admiration, perhaps, and a recognition that the sincerity he observed in those university halls was not a phase but a permanent characteristic. In the end, his story and hers are bound together by a single lesson, arrived at from very different directions: dedication, not just talent, is what lasts.