KAIST Business School, the leader of global MBA

is the platform where students with a variety of nationalities make interactions

KAIST Business School, which was accredited from the two most prestigious accreditation institutions, AACSB(U.S.) and EQUIS (Europe), now became the frontier of globalization. Its core competitiveness comes from its independent educational know-how, active internship program, and associated program with enterprises. These factors induce not only Korean students but also students from other countries to select KAIST Business School.

We interviewed Mr. Ivan Ivanov (Techno MBA, Class of ’08), who has been an international student at KAIST Business School and was hired by LS cable in HR department right after his graduation, along with another international student, Katherine Hui (IMBA, Class of ’10) to get a feel for what the MBA life at KAIST Business is like

Selecting IMBA for making the leap to the next level

Katherine Hui (IMBA, Class of ‘10)

Katherine Hui majored in Management at Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) and worked for Accenture in Hong Kong location for 3 years. Afterwards, she went to Mainland China. She learned Mandarin and worked at international school there. Back in 2006, she came to Korea for the first time. When she was new in Korea, she couldn’t speak Korean at all, but after a couple of years with intensive learning of Korean language, she work for the telecommunication Consulting team at SK C&C as an intern. She also worked for Samsung Engineering in oversea marketing team and applied for KAIST MBA to gain more in-depth knowledge on management and to make the leap to the next level of her career. Ever since she entered into KAIST Business School, she joined not only 1 year intensive academic program but also workshop, school festival, and get-togethers with her class mates. Off the campus, she also made a good memory by appearing in one of the famous TV quiz show called ‘1:100’ representing KAIST Business School. Of course, she studied really hard and posted her name in Dean’s highest honor list. Among many others, most memorable thing to her was SCM exam with unlimited time given by Professor Bowon Kim. The exam started at 4 pm and she could finish the exam around 2 am on the following day. Some other class mates were able to finish it at 4 am by the persuasion of T.A. That was the longest exam she had ever had, but it was a pleasing experience brought up as an interesting topic so many times among her class mates. Currently, unlike other class mates, she is spending more time preparing to get a job in a bid to find the position that best suits her personality and experience even though she already received an offer from a company.

Katherine got admitted to the KAIST Business School with same condition as Koreans and she endeavored to understand Korean culture and customs in order to blend well among her class mates since she was the only foreigner in IMBA program.

Katherine advised other international students at KAIST that they participate in a variety of activities and learn from communicating with people in addition to working hard on study.

For past one year, Katherine even forgot her identity as a foreigner. We hope that she reaps the best result considering the amount of effort she has put with prudent decision-making attitude on her career path.

KAIST Business School, located in the center of Asia

Ivan Ivanov (Techno MBA, Class of ’08)

Ivan Ivanov, who majored in psychology at Moscow State University, began to get interest in Korea’s unprecedented economic growth when he came to Kookmin University in Korea as an exchange student. Afterwards, he studied public policy at University of Northern Iowa and was able to be aware of the importance of Asian Economy. This led him to decide to enter into KAIST MBA, which is located in Seoul, the center of Asia. The experience of participating in exchange student program when he was in undergraduate played an important role in his decision making as to which school to go. He was contemplating as to which Korean MBA to go after he came to Korea, and he landed on KAIST Business School by considering recommendations from his acquaintances and the well-known systematic curriculums at KAIST Business School.

After he entered into KAIST Business School, he enjoyed extracurricular activities such as tennis and hiking over the weekend to experience Korean culture better through managing well his busy schedule coming from his school works. He thought that his extrovert personality and his psychology major in undergraduate would make up a perfect fit for Human Resources Career path. Besides, he considered the fact that there are few foreign people working in HR field in Korea and he thought this would open up many opportunities for him. As a first step for his career goal, he worked as an intern at POSCO HR department, and he is currently in charge of International Candidates’ Recruitment at LS Cable, perusing his career goal steadily.

Ivan mentioned that the more strong alliance and bond with Universities in other countries are necessary for the greater improvement of KAIST Business School, and he also provided an idea that it could be effective to establish oversea head office of KAIST Business School.

As a foreigner, he set his goal to get a job successfully in Korea and he put lots of effort to achieve it. Now, he is trying to speak better Korean. Ivan fantasizes about becoming HR professional and we hope that he can get one step closer to his career goal.