Jonathan Adams, second from left, taught English at the University of California Riverside International Education Center (GNUCR) in southern Seoul. Seeking an opportunity for a career in the corporate world, he enrolled in Sungkyunkwan University's Global School of Business last year. Established in 2004, the SKK GSB offered the first international MBA program in Korea. The university is also the oldest in Korea with its antecedent being founded in 1398.
I’m 32 and from North Berwick, which is near Edinburgh, Scotland. I was a faculty member at GNUCR — teaching college students who wanted to go to graduate schools in the U.S. I’ve also worked in the U.K., Portugal, Canada, Germany Dubai and Israel, and have experience in marketing and journalism.
I came to Korea for the first time in 2002. At the time I was working for a marketing company in Scotland and a friend of mine, who was teaching English in Suwon, called to tell me that there was a position open in the school where she was working. And the football World Cup was coming later that year in Korea. I’m a huge fan of football, so I saw six matches including the quarterfinal between Korea and Spain. Since then I have worked in many countries. This is my third time in Korea.
I’m doing an MBA because I was ready for a new challenge, wanted to push myself, and felt an MBA would be a great experience and an excellent investment. I really enjoyed the job of teaching English. But it was not the job I wanted to do forever. It’s a quite limited field. I think I have more potential in other areas.
I had considered a lot of options, including many masters program. When I started looking for programs here, I was quite surprised and impressed by the SKK program. I read opinions and comments on the internet on different programs here, and everyone was really positive about SKK. I also went to the school’s information session in November 2009. I got the acceptance letter in December 2009 and the program started in August 2010.
I’ve lived in Korea long enough to know about the name value of the SKY schools (Seoul National University, Korea University and Yonsei University) and KAIST, but as a self-sponsored student I was most interested in finding a program that worked for me. While SKK GSB was the only school I applied to, overall I was very impressed with the standard of the English-language MBA programs here.
I would ideally like to find a job in Seoul with a global company. In terms of specialization, I would lean more towards a role in marketing, communications or another creative field, although as an MBA student you have to be ready for anything! I have a summer internship starting next month with Cheil Worldwide (a Samsung affiliate in PR and advertising), which is a fantastic opportunity and something I’m very excited about. The school is really great in helping with finding internships and finding job placements, which is a major benefit of this program.
Last year, we had a tour of Cheil and I found the company was filled with creative energy. So I told the MBA office that Cheil would be my No. 1 choice, and they connected me to the company.
I’ve enjoyed all our classes and teachers! I would give special mention to professor James Oldroyd, who taught us Competitive Strategy, Entrepreneurship and Negotiations, which were all fantastic classes. He was able to Skype some of the entrepreneurs from our case discussions, which added a really innovative element to our classes. I also really enjoyed the Brand Management classes with professor Koo Min-jung, and it’s great when we have professors come over from our partner schools at MIT and Indiana.
Interviewed by Cho Jin-seo