Rafael Prince, from Mexico, is in his second year of the Yonsei Global MBA program. Established in 1998, the Yonsei MBA program is the first English-only MBA program in Korea.
I studied industrial engineering and most of my work experience is at GCC, a multinational medium-sized cement company in Mexico. After working in human resources for three years, I worked another four years in corporate strategy, basically M&A. I started the Yonsei MBA in August 2010.
I was originally planning to do my MBA in the U.K. but after the financial crisis of 2008, I had to redraw my MBA strategy. I didn’t want to get into almost $100,000 in debt after the MBA. As I was re-planning, I got an email from Yonsei — they probably got my email from GMAT. I had done some research about Korea at GCC. My conclusion was that there are a lot of opportunities between Latin America, the North American economic region and Korea.
I considered China and Japan. But opportunities come with economic growth, and Japan’s is stagnant. Meanwhile China’s per capita GDP is still too low. I figured Korea was the best choice, with a perfect combination of growth and an ideal level of per capita GDP.
My first impression was that the facilities were first-rate. The support system — admissions, career support and student aid — is top notch as well. So is the faculty. All professors have Ph.D.s from top universities around the world. Visiting professors from Japan, China and the U.S. are also outstanding.
I went on a trip to Thailand in February. The school sponsored the trip since we were entering a competition there.
It’s a business plan competition where participants are graded on their ideas to develop new products. It is hosted bythe Sasin School of Business in Thailand and sponsored by some of the most important companies from Thailand. Our advisor was the chairman of the board of a business conglomerate from Thailand. He invited us to his company where he and his managers gave us advice on how to bring our product to market.
It’s a personal air conditioner that saves electricity. It makes efficient use of space and can save up to 80 percent in electricity. We are going to workon it until December to make it happen, so I can’t tell you more about it now.
In my team, there’s another guy from Mexico, a Swede, a Pakistani, and a Korean. It’s a very international group.
The mean is 29. There are about 10 to 15 Korean students who have a lot of business experience and are sponsored by their companies. Then, there are international students who are usually younger, their average age being approximately 27.
Yes, the senior managers are great mentors. They bring a lot of business savvy to the class while the international students provide cultural diversity, making it a global class.
I have an offer to return to GCC. However, staying in Korea for at least another couple of years is very tempting. Got a big decision to make. After my summer internship, I’ll have more grounds to decide.
Yonsei career services helped me find it. Starting Monday, I’m interning at a company called Iljin Electric. This comes back to my point about opportunities between Mexico and Korea. Iljin has ambitious plans for Latin America. I think many Korean companies are in the same situation. If someone from Latin America is considering an MBA in Korea, I will recommend them to give it a serious thought. There’s not enough supply of human talent who knows both regions.
Interviewed by Lee Sun-kyo