The “tweaked” continuation of an intensive five-week joint leadership program between the Yonsei Business School and Claremont McKenna College (CMC), Los Angeles, USA, ended August 3 with participants giving it high marks for furthering its goals of understanding business and Korean culture.

Launched in 2008, the program this year emphasized team teaching to encourage more student discussion of various topics, including business, economics, sociology, ethics, and theology. The faculty for the program were  Jaehoon Hahn and Andres Guiral from YSB and Manfred Keil, Albert Park and Esther Chung-Kim from CMC. In Singapore, a new field trip destination for the 22 participants, students visited Marina Bay Sands, Visa, JP Morgan, and Facebook to see firsthand the culture and work environment of multinational enterprises. A session with Yonsei alumni based in Singapore provided valuable career advice.

Vi Nguyen, a participant from CMC, said “It was impressive to see YSB students’ active participation in lectures and discussion.” And noting that the program pairs Yonsei and CMC students as roommates, she added, “sharing a room with one of them was another great experience to build rapport despite the different backgrounds.”

Se Ho Im (Business, entering class of 2011) said the program improved his English proficiency in addition while introducing him to foreign students. “Another valuable part of the program,” he added, “was definitely the fact that you can get an opportunity to visit great multinational firms and experience their environment.”

Professor Andres Guiral, a Yonsei professor who participated in this program for the first time, expressed his satisfaction with working with the CMC professors. He mentioned that the integration of different fields into one coherent topic must have been very helpful for the students. Moreover, Prof. Guiral said he had a lot of fun teaching in this program, since the participating students were very eager and willing to learn. He also voiced his opinion that Korean students need a little ice breaking in the beginning and that it would be necessary to encourage active socializing for the future programs.