I have now been a Korea University Business student for almost two months, and I am loving every minute of it. I am taking a full 18 credits and have a bit of a hefty workload, but the beautiful campus and the energy of all the students around me makes the “work” aspect of it all much more enjoyable. Outside of class, there are often many different events going on around campus. A few weeks ago, I attended a showcase for different student organizations, including a jazz club, dance club, orchestra, and other performance-based organizations. There is a lot of school spirit here, so there was a great turnout, which made it a lot of fun. I also got to watch a KU soccer game against our rival school, Yonsei University, and being a part of the student section and learning the chants was very exciting and reminded me of being at a Pitt sporting event.

All of the classes I am taking abroad are business classes, besides my Korean language class. I am taking classes that cover a variety of subjects, such as marketing, operations, and accounting. Many of the course concepts and themes overlap, which really helps to enhance my knowledge of each area and of the business world as a whole. The classes are lecture-based, very similar to how they would be at Pitt. The main difference is there is little to no homework in my classes, and most of my grade depends on the midterm exam, final exam, and group project(s). I have multiple group projects across my different classes, most of which include an essay and corresponding presentation. I am taking a class on Organizational Behavior as well, so we often discuss how to make a group successful and the many benefits of the collaboration of people with different thoughts, experiences, and knowledge. This course is very relevant to my many group assignments, especially because the groups are comprised of 6-8 students who are from several different countries, in some cases. It makes the experience of working in a group more challenging but also much more rewarding. The challenges of working around a language barrier are heavily outweighed by the benefits of many different perspectives and ideas, and the outcomes of our projects have felt very rewarding thus far. The communication and personal skills I am developing through the experience of working in these groups will most certainly transfer to any job or group assignment I’ll have in the future.