Finale

Hello everyone,

This is it! My 2 months summer internship is over now. Time does fly by.... I am sad that I have to say good bye to this great experience. However, during the internship, I had a great time with two other MBA interns. Even though each has different personality, we have overcome humps. Each member respects and listens the others. Most of all, we became great friends. I hope that this relationship lasts forever. I also had a great time with co-workers. I do really appreciate their helps and insights. I pray that our project result contributes to the company's future strategy. Here are some points that I want to go over.

1) Final presentation
We ended up having more than 150 pages of powerpoint slides. Well, we had to shrink those into 10 pages. We almost spent 2 entire days just for shrinking. After strenuous works, we finally had a presentation in front of entire strategy team. Even though our result was not super creative, it was solid enough to satisfy our audience. I do still remember their sharp questions. Trying to persuade others was not easy.

2) Final hang-out
About 15 MBA interns got together for the last farewell party. Everyone was tired but satisfied with their works and friendship, which we made during last 2 months. We reminisced from the day one of the internship orientation to the first farewell party for early leavers who had shorter projects. We also shared about favorite Korean foods and hated ones too. Good bye my friends!

3) Lessons
In-class learning is not going to work 100% in real work place. We needed to adjust what MBA has taught us mightily and, at the same time, to keep persuading co-workers. Yes, this was not a easy task, but this experience itself was another great learning opportunity.

Thank you very much for your reading! It is time to go home!! See you in AA!!

byung

2 more weeks to go!

Hi everyone. It has been already 6 weeks since I started the summer internship. Wow time does fly by~ Today I want to share how communication is important during the internship. The communication problem almost cost our project.

Since our project mentor had to take care of three other projects, we, three MBA interns, did not have real chance to talk to him for about two weeks. Yes, he was really busy and could not review our progress neither. Then problem occured. Our approach of project was not following the intension of our team leader, which he never mentioned before. A week before the interim report to team leader, our mentor noticed this issue and ordered us to redo the research in 4 days, which we have been doing for last two weeks.

Suddenly, we were under pressure. We decided to re-schedule the project and, painfully, shorten the project scope because we did not have enough time to complete the business proposal. To make the matter worse, we also had to complete extra report for the interim report: don't ask me why we have to write a report for a report. I guess that each team has its own working culture. Well, we did our best, and the interim report got a bad review by the team leader. But our team leader's frank opinion on the report greatly helped us to have clear understanding and picture of the project. His sharp comments helped us to build better framework, problem solving, and recommendation.

I am not blaming our mentor. It was our fault. We should have actively talked to the mentor, even though he was super busy. Helping him by not bothering him (no conversation) is not real help for both us and the mentor. Well, good news is that our project is heading right direction, and our team leader is fine with shortened project scope. We will see how our final presentation goes.

Hi guys,

My internship is almost over. Two more weeks to go!! Yes!! I didn't realize that time does fly by~ So far, the internship has been a blessing. 1) I made 30 new mba friends, who are from all over the world. 2) My team members are fun too hang out. 3) I totally forgot about Korean working culture. 4) Re-learning about the importance of the communication


1) Seoul Trip
One weekend, my fellow intern friend and I decided to take 8 international mba interns to Seoul. Well, they were sick and tired of Suwon, where is full of factories and not a fun place to hang out.
Even though, the end of the trip, we walked more than 6 hours, we were proud that we toured the most of the northern parts of Seoul. We stop by the loyal palace, the inner city stream, the president house, a traditional street, and the shopping mall. Let me know, if you interested.

2) Project members
The more and more I work with my teammates. I am falling in love with them : ) They are all smart people, and they are classic mba students. They know when to work and when to play. They know how to work efficiently. Hopefully, I learn most of their merits before the internship is over.

3) Korean working culture
I cannot not reveal about the internship. But one thing that I want to share about the culture is 'passive, passive, and passive!!' But it is better than when I was working in Korea.

4) Re-learning about the importance of the communication
Due to our project mentor's crazy schedule, of course super busy, we, mba interns, could not talk to him about a week. Well, to be honest, we felt bad to bother him. Due to this mis-communication, we ended up reworking on 2 weeks' worthy of marketing research in 3 days. Isn't this crazy??!! I guess that I got affected by 'passive, passive, and passive' Korean culture. Wake up! Byung!!

Talk to you guys later

byung

Just Like MAP!

Hi people, how are you guys doing?

Even though I finished almost the half of the summer internship, I think it is good time to go back when my internship begun. By the way, so far, my internship has been fun and challenging, but, luckily, MAP experience has saved me couple of times. Thank God that I am in Ross : )

1. Internship Subject
I got the internship opportunity in the strategy team in Samsung Electronics' semiconductor memory division. My internship subject is setting a market entry strategy for an upcoming product by studying current IT trends. I want to go deeper, but it is against NDA sorry..

2. Team members
I'm working with two other MBA students. 'J' is from MBA school in China and has been a great intermediate between me and 'P'. And 'P', who has pure engineering backgrounds before joining MBA in U.S, has giving us diverse perspectives. It took me first two weeks to figure out the personalities of my teammates. I found out that we have a perfect chemistry for the project!!

3. First impression on mentor
My first impression on my mentor is very good. Considering conservative Korean culture, he is the person who has very open mind and will to listen other opinions, which are against his opinion. He is also love to talk about classic guitar, body building, and soccer. Finally, he is the one who makes us go home as early as possible. I love it!!

4. Just like MAP
Every internship step reminds me MAP; the letter of the engagement, the way interacting with mentor and other teammates, the research methodology, and, of course, making attractive also persuasive power point slides. I did not realize MAP experience was going to help me to secure my fulltime position. Cross ma fingers!!

See you next blog!

It's been a week and I'm still alive : )

First of all, I need to clarify my blog topic switch. My internship journey for social venture capital didn't work out well, so I decided to work for Samsung Electronics. Currently, I'm a part of a strategy team in a semiconductor division. I'm really sorry for the late notice.

Well, it's been a week since my internship got started. Time does fly by~ First three-day of internship was orientation, and I want to share what I have been learning so far.

1. Samsung's super tight security; worse than U.S. airport

I have never been in a place where I have to seal up my MP-3 player in a plastic bag, cover my cellphone camera lense with a small sticker, get a security tag on my bags, and double check my enterance permit. It was worse than U.S. airport. All these are for preventing information leak against Samsung product/strategy. Do I have to do this every morning during next 8 weeks??!! Sigh...

2. MBA interns from all over the world

There are about 30 MBA interns from Spain, Italy, Romania, England, China, India, and U.S.A. And thay are all crazy about the World Cup!!! I just realized how English is not patient only in soccer. Especially, when US tied with England, you should have seen the face of my colleague from England.

3. Cultural norms in Korea according to orientation.

I want to share some of Korean norms, which were written in a orientation material. I think these are funny.
-'One of the ways of developing mutual trust and cementing a personnel relationship is the practice of getting closer through sharing alcohol...'
-'How to get out of the drink-to-get-drunk-as-fast-as-possible: Keep your glass half full - never let it be seen to be empty or someone will feel obligated to refill it.'
-'There is no such thing as Dutch treat in Korea. Only one person will pay the bill when two or more people go out.'
-'Try to be aware of subtleties in communication, observing non-verbal and indirect cues that often suggest the true sense of what is being communicated.'
Tough, aren't they? If you want to visit Korea, never forget these norms : )

Next time, I'll share about my internship life.

See ya!!