Work experience: skills development and career progression

University of Virginia School of Commerce

I have chosen to apply to University of Virginia, School of Commerce to pursue my academic interest in commerce. My principal vocational preparation for entering the formal study of Commerce was my summer internship at Hyundai Securities in Seoul, Korea. More specifically, I interned in the Management Department of the Retirement Pensions Division.

In many respects, working with retirement pensions helped me understand the importance of effective and knowledgeable commercial analyses. The decisions made by retirement portfolio investment managers can have obvious lifelong consequences for the individuals relying on a retirement pension in the decades of life during which they can no longer work to support themselves through earned income. While I did not have any direct responsibility for investment decision making in my internship capacity, I was able to familiarize myself with the related concepts and I did take note of the direct effects of decisions made in that realm, especially decisions made on behalf of others.

More generally, my five-day 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM schedule introduced me to the corporate working lifestyle in the commerce field. I am currently enrolled at the Pennsylvania State University as a sophomore, majoring in Accounting.

and, notwithstanding the effort required to maintain a GPA of 3.92/4.0, I genuinely appreciate the challenge of a fulltime career after having been fortunate enough to maintain the comparatively easy schedule of a fulltime college student previously. It is a challenge to which I greatly look forward upon my graduation.

The other professional experience that I have had that has prepared me to continue my studies at the University of Virginia, School of Commerce was the unique opportunity to intern at the Economics and Politics Department of the Boston Korea Newspaper Company. That experience also helped me understand the importance of sound economic and financial forecasting and the intimate connection between politics and economics at virtually every conceivable level.

Having already had the chance to study economics at the college level, I have greatly appreciated its logical rigor and the technical processes involved in accounting for unknown variables throughout the realm of business management and financial planning. As a business student majoring in Accounting, I have been intrigued by the intersection of business and the complex mathematical tools used to model and explain everyday phenomena in meaningful quantifiable terms. I realize that as the world of modern business (in particular) becomes increasingly globalized, the complexity of business and financial forecasting become only that much more challenging.