Category Archives: Kohsheen

Choosing Classes and Other Nail Biting, Sweat Inducing Experiences

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A few days ago, I had to choose classes for my semester abroad at University College London. This process is already daunting at Scripps, but at least I knew how it all worked and understood what to expect out of the torturous experience. Unfortunately, signing up for classes at UCL was completely uncharted territory and I had no idea how the process worked.

I expected to be able to talk to someone about my options and that they would help me come up with a final decision, but instead I was given a list of classes in my department and let loose to sign up online. In addition, I would have to contact other departments separately if I wanted to take their classes and there was no guarantee that I would be let into the class. It was obvious that I was in no way, shape, or form ready to choose classes alone so I decided to furiously email every single one of my advisors back at Scripps and anyone at UCL that would reply to me.

Finally, after countless emails and Skype conversations with professors, I had a tentative idea about my schedule and what classes that I should take. The only remaining issue was to decide whether my last class should be a Politics class that would count towards my major or a fun class that would not count for any requirements. My mentality going into choosing classes was to make sure that all my classes counted towards my majors so that I could complete my dual major in Politics and Economics. However, after talking to my major advisor I realized that the whole point of studying abroad is to have experiences that you cannot have at your home university. I was really worried about being able to complete my dual major and simultaneously taking classes for fun, but I decided that I should look more for the experience than for fulfilling requirements. Before I could change my mind, I decided to sign up for a class called Medieval History in London Collections, which takes you to different old sites and museums around London every week.

This was definitely a nerve-wracking decision for me because I am used to planning every class and every move far in advance and only thinking about taking classes that fulfill requirements. This is the first time that I am taking a class purely for fun and I cannot wait to see how it turns out. It is definitely important to fulfill major requirements during college, but there is so much more to explore and learn and this is the best time to take advantage of the opportunities that we are given as students.

5 Steps to Starting and Maintaining Professional Relationships

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Here are my top 5 steps to beginning and maintaining professional relationships:

  • An important first step is to think about the network of connections that you already have and may have made in the past. You will be surprised as to how many people that you know are valuable connections and can provide you with a wealth of knowledge and experience. This can be parents, relatives, friends, old colleagues and schoolmates, and even old teachers. Try to reach out to any connections that you have made who may work in a company that you are interested in and rekindle that relationship. Start by sending out a friendly email asking them about how they are doing or mentioning any memory that you have together. You can also talk about important milestones in your work life so that they can remember you on a personal level and you can start a professional conversation.3835
  • As a next step, you can expand your network by using Life Connections to reach out to Scripps alumni. (Life Connections is a volunteer database that offers Scripps College students the opportunity to network with over 1,600 alumnae and friends all over the world. These volunteers have agreed to provide invaluable information about their careers, graduate studies, fellowship experiences, relocation, and job search tips within their areas of expertise.
    • These are the steps to get to life connections:
      • Log into your Scripps Portal
      • Click on the Student tab
      • On the left side of the page, there is a column where you can click on Life Connection
      • You can navigate the database by finding alumni by career, major, employer, or other fields
      • Once you get their contact information from Life Connections, send them emails asking about their jobs or about their Scripps experience. You can also use them to conduct informational interviews (mentioned in a later step)

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  • If you want to network with people in a more personal setting with more face time, then it is important to attend networking events in your area. Go to networking events such as Women in Tech or Undergraduate Summits or conferences that you can find out about through Career Planning and Resources emails. You can also Google different websites to find networking events in your area and your field of study.

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  • Once you start meeting people and creating a network, be sure to add them on LinkedIn to keep these connections for the future. Make sure to send a customized message to every single person you add so they remember you distinctly and can associate you with that message in the future when you reach out to them. You can also interact with articles they share on LinkedIn to show your interest and keep yourself on their radar. If you haven’t already seen it, be sure to check out the Find Alumni search under the “My Network” menu where you can search for Scripps Alumnae by location, company, what they studied and more.

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  • Finally, be sure to conduct informational interviews with anyone that you find interesting in your network. Informational interviews are meetings in which a potential job seeker seeks advice on their career, the industry, and the culture of a potential future workplace, while an employed professional learns about the job seeker. These are helpful in finding out more about industries that you may be interested in while also showing your interest to the employer. These interviews do not need to be stressful and can purely be used to find out more information, but make sure to be prepared with questions and a little background knowledge of the company so that you can make a good first impression.

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Overall it is important to:

  1. Reach out to your old network of connections
  2. Make new contacts through Life Connections and the LinkedIn Find Alumni tool.
  3. Go to networking events for face to face time
  4. Add people on LinkedIn
  5. Conduct informational interviews with people whose work interests you

My Day at Harvard Business School

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My first interaction with Harvard took place when I was 4 years old. My mother brought me to visit Harvard University and took an extremely stereotypical and embarrassing picture of me in front of the school. She loved the idea of me going to one of the best colleges in the world and wanted before and after pictures of when I would go there in the future. Alas, when it came time to apply to colleges, I had no interest in Harvard due to a combination of a lack of confidence in being accepted as well as a terrifying fear of the famed east coast cold.

My next interaction with Harvard was while watching the movie Legally Blonde. I remember being in awe of Elle Woods as she practically waltzed into Harvard Law with her handbag sized Chihuahua and her perfectly matching pink outfits. To me, Harvard was a school for the movies; an unreachable vision without much of a tangible reality tied to it.

Yesterday, I had my third and most recent interaction with the school. My friend who studies at Harvard Business School invited me to disguise myself as a Harvard student, don my best crimson apparel, and sit in on classes with her. (As a side note: I had never thought about attending business school until a few months ago when it became a real option in my mind). I was in Boston visiting my aunt and I agreed to come over to Cambridge to hangout with my friend and finally see Harvard as a real school.

As I stepped on the campus, I automatically felt a different vibe than going to school on the west coast. The buildings were all grandiose and made of red brick with Ivy League banners hanging from them and large Grecian columns decorating the sides. The class itself was held in a small auditorium that was shaped in a semi circle to incentive maximum class discussion. It was a two hour-long class about entrepreneurial management called Founder’s Dilemmas, which was a case based class about different issues that founders of companies face. Here are some ideas/opinions that I learned and had about the overall experience:

  • Business school classes are mainly discussion based and the professor acts as a moderator instead of giving a lengthy lecture. It important to read all the cases and assigned readings because the professor calls on people randomly and expects them to have a well thought out answer. In addition, Harvard is one of the only business schools that is primarily case based and looks mainly at real world examples.
  • The structure is more formal than classes at most undergraduate schools. Everyone in the class has an assigned seat with a name tag and they could only speak when called on by the professor. It is also very much looked down upon to have any laptop or cell phone out on one’s desk and no one even leaves to go to the bathroom during the class.
  • Most people in business school are in their late twenties and have had multiple years of experience in the work force before coming to Harvard.
  • What really surprised me was that I could keep up with the class and its material without having a background in business. I came into the experience thinking that everyone would be leaps and bounds ahead of me, but I was able to understand the whole discussion and there were even points when I had something to contribute. This was eye opening for me because it was the first time that I could see myself at a business school like Harvard and even see myself enjoying the experience.

Overall, this experience was beneficial in giving me a concrete glimpse of how business school would be for me. Most importantly, sitting in on the class gave me the confidence to think of Harvard as a real option for my future. I learned that it is important to give yourself a chance to try out various options so that you can realistically weigh them when you need to make a decision. I also learned not to underestimate myself and allow the opportunity to try everything without making assumptions of my competencies. In all, I enjoyed my Harvard experience and maybe one day in the future my mom will finally have the “after” picture that she so

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What I Learned During my Corporate Summer Internship

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On May 15, 2016, I packed my mini toothbrush, all my business clothes, and a bag of Philz Tesora coffee into a large suitcase and traveled to Duluth, Georgia for my summer internship at AGCO Corporation. What I knew was that my formal role was a Global Talent Management intern within the Global Business Services department, but I had no idea how it would feel to live alone in a foreign land (Georgia felt so far away) and I had a lot to learn about what my job actually entailed. I still felt a certain amount of excitement that usually accompanies taking a step in a new direction and braving the unknown. My background was all non-profit work, politics, and government campaigns and here I was getting ready to put on my corporate heels and get down to business (pun intended). Last summer, I traveled to a rural village in India where I lived in an orphanage and conducted research on female feticide and infanticide. In contrast, I was going to spend this summer at a large Fortune 500 industrial manufacturing company in Georgia, which felt like a complete 180. Through this experience, I learned a lot about myself and about what it means to work in a corporate job. Although I came to the conclusion that corporate work is not for me, I did learn many important life and transferable skills from this experience.    Here is a list of things I learned during my summer internship:

What I learned:

  1. How to make pivot tables on Microsoft Excel
  2. Working on a global team means having to know time differences
  3. Making weekly grocery store and restaurant budgets is a good idea
  4. You do not make as much money as you would expect (taxes, gas, food and living expenses take up a lot of your income)
  5. Making new friends is hard (especially when the other interns have friends and family in the area)
  6. Ask people to do things for you! (Ex. give you a recommendation on LinkedIn, talk about their career path, tell you about cool restaurants in the area)
  7. People are friendly and like to invite you to their house if you tell them you do not know anyone in the area
  8. Go to intern and company sponsored events! They can actually be really fun (I ended up going white water rafting in Tennessee one day and loved it)
  9. Try talking to people as high up in the company as you can (I had lunch with multiple Senior Vice Presidents to make connections and learn about the company)
  10. To keep my receipts and predict future spending based on what I spent during the first month
  11. People can make their internships look super cool on social media, but may not love them so much in reality
  12. Going to meet ups or volunteer events is a really great way to make new friends with similar interests
  13. You may not love your internship, but you will always learn something from the experience if you keep an open mind

I would love to hear all your comments about your summer experiences and what you felt like you learned during your work/internships!