As a kid, Soyeon Yi dreamt of becoming many things- a doctor, a lawyer, a president, you name it. But she thought nothing of becoming an astronaut or ever wondered about the possibilities in space. No, she loved technology and fixing things. From a young age, she would watch her father fix everything around the house, and she wanted to be just like him . When given a toy, instead of playing with it, she would take it apart.

Soyeon Yi was the first korean astronaut to go to space. Yes, Korea’s first astronaut was a woman. And she’ll be moderating WTIA’s “Not just for astronauts: The Business of space” panel on Nov. 3 with speakers from Blue Origin,  Aerojet Rocketdyne, and Space Angels Network. Just before sitting down with her, my heart fluttered with excitement and nervousness to meet this incredible woman who has accomplished so much at the young age of 37. But to my surprise, she was extremely warm, approachable and grateful.

Growing up, Yi always knew that she was attracted to maths and sciences, she never gave too much thought as to who she wanted to become, Yi simply followed what she loved and was constantly surrounded by a science community who shared the same passion.  During her Ph.D Course in BioSystems, her found the news about Korea creating a national program on sending the first Korean astronaut to space, she was intrigued. Yi applied immediately for the program as soon as the announcement was made, and much to her shock, she was only one out of the 36,000 applicants who were interested. Yi quickly made an ambitious goal:“I’ll aim to make it to the top 300, and I can put that on my resume.” It was a big deal and her friends promised to treat her to beer if she made it. But when she made it to top 100, her plans began to change. She became one of the two people left in the competition and while being televised, she was sent to Russia to train to compete for the finalist. “It was just like the American Idol!” Yi remarked.

Yi’s journey to space was not easy. She came from a tiny village in Korea and her family never had the financial status to support her education. Her whole education was supported through scholarship, yet it also served as a driving force for her to work hard. Her curiosity was what helped her breakthrough again and again. Yi’s mother was an integral part of her success. Yi’s mother never went to college but always remained curious and fought hard to learn. Whenever Yi had a question that her mother could not answer, she would never say she did not know, instead, she would come up with resources and places for Yi to search for the answer. Yi’s mother had parents who did not believe in education for women, but Yi’s mother valued Yi’s education tremendously and always urged Yi to stay curious and find a way, shaping Yi into the person she is today.

When I asked whether or not Yi had a harder time pursuing her education and career as a women. She laughed at me and said, “ Men have their own difficulties!” She quickly explained that she never let herself use her gender as an excuse to fail. Yi admitted there were obvious differences in her field between being a woman than being a man, and women are significantly less present in the science and math field. During her undergrad in Mechanical Engineering, her workshop building did not even have a women’s restroom because prior to her arrival, there never was a need for one “which made me stand a lot! When I passed a course I was significantly more praised than the man next to me”. She joked, “The downside was that I could never skip class, everyone would know!”

Later down the road, Yi decided to take a sharp turn and pursue her MBA in UC Berkeley. “I always knew the business people were different from us science nerds, but I wanted understand them!” Yi explained that she was always a researcher, and never understood why business people act the way they do and was never interested as she believed they were too different. But after becoming an Astronaut, she was exposed to a lot of diverse people with different careers and she realized that there was a lot of miscommunication between scientists and other people. As an engineer, she always felt that Business people were taking advantage of them, but she realized that she needed an education in MBA to really understand them.

More so, her MBA also got her to think about how her background now fits into business. With commercial space moving up, she is excited to see what opportunities there is out there for people like her. “I can see many opportunities for people like myself. I always promote space technology like tempurpedic technology, and often challenged people with questions: as a common person, what do you expect of benefit from space tech and as an engineer, how can you prepare for the future. That is my curiosity. I really want to join the space generation and commercial space activity.”

I asked Yi what advice she had for young people like myself. Without skipping a beat, Yi told me, “ Please follow your heart! You cannot calculate what happens in the future but you can try for the things you love. And become the best at what you love. And most importantly, forget you are a women. And even when other people discriminate you for being a women, you still can not let it be an excuse. Work harder! Women are personable and emotional, and guys think it’s bad but that is what makes us better leaders.”