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In the past, he’s been called Birr, Wilson, and Harry. His real name’s Byung Cho, but he currently prefers to be called Jason.

“As you can see by the spelling, a lot of people have a hard time using my real name,” says the 22-year-old native of South Korea.

“So I’ve used various names. Now I’m going by Jason.”

Jason, who moved the United States about six years ago, says the first sentence he learned to speak in English was “I don’t speak English.”

Since then, the Ooltewah High School graduate has gained fluency in his new language while continuing to build his skills in a more universal “language”: mathematics.

“What I like about math is that it’s very ‘reasonable,’” says Jason, who was invited by Dr. Geoffrey Poor, Assistant Professor of Mathematics, to participate in the recent 12th Annual Gainesville State College Math Tournament.

Jason placed 14th in the individual competition in a field of 72 competitors.

“It was the hardest test I’ve ever taken,” he says, noting that the test was designed to evaluate one’s mathematical ability. “I heard that the test was intended to be very tough and to not produce any perfect scores.”

The test may have been hard, but it came with a “free lunch,” which Jason says he enjoyed, and a chance to compete with other talented math students from eight colleges in Georgia, Tennessee, and North Carolina.

“It was a really good experience to go there and compete,” says Jason. “We had a really good time.”

The one-day event involved a morning individual round involving calculus and an afternoon team round involving algebra, geometry, logic, and other pre-calculus topics.

As a Physics major enrolled in the Regents’ Engineering Transfer Program (RETP) at Dalton State, Jason’s plans for the future include majoring in either construction engineering or civic engineering at Georgia Tech.

The RETP encourages Georgia residents to begin a program of study at Dalton State College that will lead to a bachelor’s of engineering degree from Georgia Tech. DSC is one of 14 institutions in the University System of Georgia approved to offer it. Students who are enrolled in this program have advantages over non-RETP students when transferring to Tech, and can benefit by saving money during their first two or three years of college by living at home.

Jason says despite his plans to transfer to Tech in the future, he has “definitely” enjoyed his time at Dalton State.

“I really like this school. When I found out about the RETP program, I was really interested in coming here first,” he says.

“The students who come here often go up and talk to their professors after class. At a big school, I think that would be kind of hard.”

As for his future, Jason says that he would love to build houses.

“But you never know what’s in your future. I know that I really love to learn, so I could end up in anything. In ten years I could end up as a missionary, a mathematician or in construction. You never know.”