<P> Warmbier graduated from Wyoming High School in 2013 as salutatorian, the second - highest ranking student in his class . He was considered popular and studious, and played on the soccer team . His coach said he was a gifted player and a natural leader . </P> <P> Warmbier was enrolled at the University of Virginia, where he was studying for a double major degree in commerce and economics and did an exchange at the London School of Economics . His minor was in global sustainability . He was a third - year student when he traveled to China, followed by a side - trip to North Korea . </P> <P> He was a brother of the Theta Chi fraternity . Warmbier's mother was Jewish, and he was active in the Hillel Jewish campus organization at the University of Virginia . He had visited Israel in a Birthright Israel heritage trip for young Jewish adults . </P> <P> In May 2017 the Washington Post interviewed some of Warmbier's college friends, who described him, according to the paper, as a "sports fan who can reel off stats about seemingly any team, a friendly Midwesterner who can break down underground rap lyrics (and craft some of his own), a deep thinker who would challenge himself and others to question their place in the world, a guy from an entrepreneurial family who ate half - price sushi, an insatiably curious person with a strong work ethic and a delight in the ridiculous ." </P>

University of virginia student detained in north korea