Christopher Park and his mother, Dongju Lee, are preparing to walk in the same commencement ceremony this month. Park and Lee, a single mom of three boys, started separate Purdue programs in 2021, but they never expected to have the opportunity to attend the same commencement four years later. Park’s two younger brothers are also in college, with one attending Purdue and the other studying visual arts in New York.
Park finished his degree in the spring and was due to walk in the May 2025 commencement ceremony, but he decided to delay his graduation to August when his mother was scheduled to earn her master’s degree. Park majored in computer and information technology (CIT) at Purdue Polytechnic Institute and had a minor in business management. Lee completed her Master of Science in Corporate Training and Communication degree online, allowing her to study and continue working full time.
“I’ve been studying while working, so it took me longer than the expected two years to complete the program,” Lee said. “As I worked to finish by summer 2025, Chris decided to delay his commencement so we could graduate together. I couldn’t appreciate him more. I never imagined we’d walk the stage of Elliott Hall side by side.”
Lee has been a single mom to three sons for over 20 years. While the boys were growing up, they lived in Atlanta, Georgia, but the family later moved to South Korea for Lee’s career. The move was a big change in language and culture, but she prioritized her sons’ growth and wanted them to have life experiences that would promote their success in adulthood.
“I tried to do my best to be a mother and, at the same time, a role model for my boys. Through their young ages, living in various countries, environments, and cities must have been very hard for those three boys,” Lee said. “But at the same time, I hope those experiences became a valuable resource and motivation, helping them view the world through a more diverse lens.”
After their family moved back to Georgia, Lee encouraged Park to move away from their home state for college. Purdue was top-of-mind for Park; it was the first college he interacted with during a college fair in South Korea, and he was impressed by the different areas of study and the school’s reputation.
Park explored several areas of study before landing in Purdue’s Polytechnic Institute. He and Lee say they never planned to start their programs at the same time, but she discovered Purdue’s program and knew it was the right time and place to advance her 30-year career in the human resources field, specifically corporate training and internal communication.
Park is now considering medical school and using both areas of study to enter bioinformatics, which involves complex data analysis to study living things like the human genome.
Lee hopes to use her master’s degree to advance her career in human resources and do consulting work in corporate training.
“While it’s common to plan for the future in your 50s, I don’t plan to retire any time soon. I hope to keep working into my 70s,” Lee said. “I strongly believe in lifelong learning as a way to grow professionally, and that’s something I wanted Chris to understand. I’m so glad he found that through the CIT curriculum and Purdue Polytechnic Institute.”
Lee pushed him to take advantage of every opportunity to learn and serve at Purdue. Park was a student representative for the Faculty Teaching Award Committee, a board member and webmaster for the Purdue Information Technology Professionals (PITP) organization, and the director for Computing Challenge Day 2024. He also was a teaching assistant for various CIT courses and completed an internship at Elanco in Indianapolis.
Park is especially grateful for his study abroad experience in Sweden with Purdue’s Department of Technology Leadership and Innovation (TLI). He says both his time living in South Korea and study abroad trip gave him invaluable experience that broadened his perspective on how society works.
“Looking back, I feel truly fortunate to have had various experiences around the world that broadened my perspective,” Park said. “They helped me understand the many facets of how society works and inspired me to become a more thoughtful and engaged global citizen.”
The two new Purdue graduates have even more to celebrate this weekend than their diplomas. Not only will the mother-son duo be graduating together, but Park was also selected as the student responder for the Division II commencement. He will represent the Class of 2025 graduates and speak on their behalf during the ceremony.
“I could not have been more proud of Chris. From the beginning, it was clear how tirelessly he worked to make the most of every opportunity at Purdue,” Lee said. “His dedication truly motivated me to finish my master’s degree—even while working full-time as a single mom. I worked hard to live up to Chris’s expectations and be a mother he could be proud of, and I am grateful to see all that effort paying off.”
The Division II commencement ceremony where Park and Lee will graduate will be Saturday, August 9, 2025, at 2:30 p.m. ET.