1. Introduction
Hello everyone! It’s been a crazy 2-3 weeks as I did not have much time to commit to my ongoing LinkedIn projects. As you may have seen from my recent LinkedIn updates, I have officially obtained my Masters degree at the prestigious Yonsei University. To rewind things, I would like to reintroduce myself again. My name is Mason and I am a first generation Chinese American from Sacramento, California. As noted in my Linkedin profile page, I am enthusiastic about engaging communities – cultural exchange, global operations, and topics related to Global/APAC HR, Talent Acquisition, as well as global strategy management, with a total of 4 years of professional working experience. I graduated from University of California, Davis with a double major in Chinese and International Relations, and got the opportunity to study at Peking University via University of California Education Abroad Program. After I went back to Davis, I continued my studies and did a 4 month internship at UC Davis Global Affairs , Confucius Institute as a Student Assistant in executing support for Chinese cooking workshops and Chinese cultural events. With previous abroad experiences in Beijing and Seoul, my cultural background and international experiences in East Asia allowed me to understand business and society of Asia which further extended to my mission in connecting the East and the West.
Purpose of the article: sharing your personal journey over the past two years
The purpose of this article is to share my personal academic and professional achievements throughout the years and reflect on what I have learned from those experiences. I hope you gain some new perspectives or new knowledge about me after reading this article.
2. 2020- 2022: COVID-19 Impact & First Professional Development
The year of the pandemic – a rush of emotions. I was lost on what to do. As I was due to graduate in the summer of 2020, my future was grey and could not see past what will happen. Lost in what I wanted to do with my future career, I decided to delay my employment plans and went straight to studying Korean through a Korean language school program. It was an interesting experience as in-person classes and online classes were provided during the middle of the pandemic. I was able to pass each level and as I got to level 5, I started to expand professionally. I joined GogoHanguk as an International coordinator to help students from mostly North America and Europe with Korean language school inquiries, advice about life in Korea, and processing applications. At the same time, I had the honor to join as an Assistant at the International Affairs at Kyungbok University where I had my first experience using Korean in a professional environment and processing basic admin work(making invoices, student visas, etc). Finally in around early 2022, I joined LiveWith, InterLink as a Community Manager and led international student programs such as English and Chinese tutoring classes for local Korean high school students, UN Peace Kor Volunteer with International Students program to foster the global atmosphere. As I approached the end of my language school studies, I decided to further my academic studies and got into Yonsei University , Graduate School of International Studies and officially joined in Fall 2022. What made me embark on this path? There were many reasons, but I guess the main reason was that I wanted to gain abroad experiences both academically and professionally. My time at Beijing expanded my horizons to a world where I never thought existed – in a sense that it fascinated me and I was eager to discover more about it. The last quarter of 2022 saw my time at GoGo-Hanguk, Kyungbok University , and LiveWith, Interlink coming to an end, and I soon began a new chapter moving forward to 2023.
3. 2023 – Academic Growth and Learnings
I majored in International Trade and Finance Management, also known as ITFM in short, and my field of concentration is Global Strategy and Economy Management. I officially declared Global Strategy Management in summer of 2023 as my first field as I found those courses suitable to my interest and skill. Up until now, I had previous experience in economics and my professional experiences were more on customer service, sales, and strategy side – thus this led to my decision. Another reason was simply that I found the courses more academically stimulating and extremely helpful to my knowledge in business. As for the Global Economy field, it happened naturally that courses from that field were in relation with the Global Strategy Field. One of my personal favorite classes(I have taken) from the strategic management field are: New Perspectives on Human Resources, Innovation and Human Capital, Global Business Negotiation and Dealmaking, and Competition and Industry Analysis.I would say these classes are great for both newbies and anyone who wants to freshen up their business skills and these particularly focus on the theme of ‘global’ business scenarios.
4. 2023- 2024 Further Professional Experiences
To be frank, although Yonsei University, Graduate School of international studies does provide support(CDC consultations, resume workshop) and internship opportunities, very few get selected for great opportunities. Many of these opportunities usually favor local Korean candidates and for international applicants, you will need a certain level of Korean language fluency(usually TOPIK level 5, but some companies may be lenient such as TOPIK 3 or 4(or some may not have this requirement at all). With the high competition in mind, there are other ways to gain professional experience and at the same time stay active on campus. As I transitioned to the Spring 2023 semester, I visited my hometown over winter break and visited my friend’s language exchange session and enjoyed it a lot. Perhaps, the aftermath of COVID and things starting to go back to normal made me motivated to go back to Yonsei and start my own language exchange club session. This led me to creating Iyagi Hour Yonsei and became the president, co-founder, and lead a team with friends and classmates who were interested in helping out. I was extremely nervous in the beginning, but as I continued to hold weekly sessions and develop new ideas in attracting members and encouraging team members to contribute, I naturally developed leadership skills and found the passion in contributing to the Yonsei community overall. This led me to partake in other on campus activities such as Yonsei GSIS GSA as a Operations Team Manager, Social Committee Member in Spring 2024, President for Global Business Hub for two consecutive semesters, and Yonsei GSIS Newsletter team member in Spring 2024, which I contributed various articles, covering social event recaps, interviews with global professionals and professors, and more.
While I juggled with classes and these projects between 2023-2024, I joined Asia-Pacific Academic (APA) originally as a Student Ambassador in March 2023, in which I supported in guiding students from the US during their faculty-led program in Korea, and gave insights about Korea in general, whether it is about life, culture, language, etc. Shortly afterwards, I was very lucky to have the opportunity to join the team as a Marketing Coordinator to support marketing operations(social media, outreach, events, designs, etc). It was a fruitful experience where I officially used my marketing skills to work to support brand awareness and strategy. Additionally, I was able to cooperate with the APA Team in registering this for internship credits with Yonsei GSIS Career Development Center and I am proud to announce that I have obtained the requested internship credits, after submitting required documents, participating in internship panel sessions, and finishing my official internship presentation.
5. Reflection on the Two-Year Journey, Future
As I finished my last semester and spent my summer working on my marketing role and having family visit me in Korea to see my walk the stage, I reflect on the experiences I had in Korea over the last 3-4 years. I have grown so much as a person and learned so much about myself. My family members, friends, and colleagues have often complimented my huge improvement as a person, and someone who isn’t shy anymore. Hearing these in hindsight, allowed me to appreciate and love myself even more. I am proud of my own efforts and the challenges I have taken, not only professionally, but also for myself. I feel even more confident in my own skills. But the last months were not easy as I wondered what is my ‘ending’ after graduation. What kind of work do I want to pursue? What kind of person do I want to become? I thought hard… and after discussions with professors, mentors, friends, colleagues, and family, I think I figured out what I want in my future career. Reflecting back to my LinkedIn introduction, the key takeaways are: Engaging communities with my multilingual skills in English, Cantonese, Mandarin Chinese, and Korean – cultural exchange, global operations, and topics related to Global and my own experience is mostly in Asia-Pacific. However, thinking about it again, fostering a global workforce(North America, South America, Asia-Pacific, Europe, Africa, etc) in this global digital age and into the future is more important than ever, specifically Human Resources, Marketing, Project Management – and I am excited to say that is in my plans for the last quarter of 2024 and transitioning to early 2025.
I hope you all are doing well and hope everyone had a great Mid Autumn Festival this week! Stay tuned for the next edition soon.
The End
Mason He, Yonsei GSIS,
MKH Productions, Special Album Edition: Portfolio Thesis