Seoul Searching: Building Friendships & Career Across the World
Created Sep 5, 2026
What happens when two strangers, connected only by a shared love of K-pop, choose to study somewhere neither of them speaks the language, instead of the well-trodden path most students take? In this session, we'll walk through our journey from fandom to friendship to career pivot, and the lessons in resilience and collaboration we picked up along the way.
Format: Presentation-style narrative walkthrough with photos, followed by open Q&A. 30 minutes total, structured as:
What brought us to Korea (3 min): how a shared interest in K-pop turned into a decision to study abroad somewhere unconventional, and why we chose the harder, less familiar option over an easier one.
How we met at Yonsei (4 min): photos and memories from meeting each other as strangers on the same path, and how that friendship formed fast, under pressure, without much shared context to start from.
Cultural & everyday challenges (6 min): the real, on-the-ground moments: language barriers, cultural misreads, and daily frictions of navigating a new country together, and how we worked through them as a team.
What we learned / takeaways (5 min): how trust gets built between people without a shared frame of reference, how to make decisions with incomplete information, and how discomfort became a source of growth rather than something to avoid.
How this shaped our careers (4 min): the direct throughline from that trip to where we are professionally now, and why we think unconventional experiences like this are underrated as career-building moments.
Q&A (8 min)
How should the session run?
Presentation
Preferred language
English
Who is this for?
Students weighing a study abroad decision (especially those considering an unconventional destination over a more popular one) and early-career professionals curious how an unusual personal experience abroad can translate into career direction. Also relevant for anyone building a partnership or working relationship with someone they don't yet share full context or background with.
Why the host can lead this
Gabby and I both spent 5 months studying in Korea, living the exact experience we're speaking about. We come from different schools (Carnegie Mellon and Rochester Institute of Technology) and completely different fields. I work in business analytics and tech, while Gabby is a microbiologist, which means we can speak to this experience from genuinely different angles rather than one narrow perspective, showing that this kind of opportunity isn't limited to one "type" of student. That range makes the session relevant to people from a variety of backgrounds, including those still on the fence about studying abroad. We're both outgoing, enthusiastic advocates for this kind of experience, and we actively represent and promote study abroad programs at our respective universities: so we're not just telling our story, we're people who've helped others take that same leap.
What you will take away
- Permission to take the less obvious path. A real example of choosing somewhere unfamiliar and intimidating over the "safe," well-trodden study abroad destination, and why that risk paid off rather than backfired. - How to build fast, deep trust with someone you don't share context with. Practical insight into forming a real partnership or friendship with someone from a different background, without a shared language or culture to lean on at first. - How to navigate ambiguity and discomfort productively. Concrete strategies for handling culture shock, language barriers, and daily friction which is the kind of adaptability that transfers directly to unfamiliar situations at work. - Proof that an unconventional experience is a career asset, not a detour. How two very different career paths (business/tech and microbiology) were both shaped, not sidetracked, by the same abroad experience. - A push to actually consider study abroad seriously, especially destinations outside the usual Europ
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