Jeff Chung, UVA Darden MBA Class of 2020
Age: 34
Hometown: Seoul, South Korea
Undergraduate Institution and Major: Yonsei University, business administration
Pre-MBA Work Experience: 8.5 years, technology (product management, 5 years; strategy, 1 year; M&A, 2.5 years)
Why business school? Why now? I took my GMAT five years ago when work-life was hardest on me. I wanted to escape from work, which seemed like a dead-end tunnel in a coal mine. On top of that, my colleagues with MBA degrees seemed to have exposure to more opportunities.
Post GMAT, my first application process was difficult for me. Honestly, I didn’t know if I really wanted to apply to business school. I was mostly focused on escaping my current reality. As I was applying, I realized that I lacked reasons to apply. I tried to craft my story, but I was unsuccessful.
It took me another four years before I finally decided to apply to business school a second time, this time not to escape but to grow. As my position at work advanced, I was assigned to more challenging business problems that I found increasingly difficult to comprehensively address.
I felt that gaining a more fundamental, academic foundation would help me boost my confidence and hone my abilities to tackle those problems. Another problem I identified was my limited personal and professional network. My existing network was rooted in Korea, and even within Korea it was largely limited to Samsung.
In the end, business school was the right choice for me now—and not on my initial attempt—for both the education and network it could provide.
Why Darden? What factors figured most prominently into your decision of where to attend? My central reason for pursuing an MBA was educational experience. I really wanted to go to a school that took pride in providing that. The other part of my criteria was family life and cost of living, because my wife and nine-month-old baby would travel with me. After careful consideration of these various factors, Darden ended up being the only U.S. business school I decided to apply to.
What do you think is your most valuable or differentiating contribution to the Class of 2020? As a product manager at Samsung for five years, I was one of the founding members of the company’s very first app store. In this role, I managed feature requirements on both the front and back ends, led partnership integrations, built content management portal requirements, and more.
My three years of pre-MBA work experience were spent as part of an M&A team, where we actively searched for and acquired promising startups with technologies complimentary to Samsung’s. I think this robust end-to-end experience as a product manager, in addition to having executed multiple M&A transactions, will help me add value.
Also, interestingly and oddly enough, I am the only Korean citizen in the Darden MBA Class of 2020! I will be the next president of the Korean Student Association, where I am keen to add more Korean perspectives to our class.
Fun fact that didn’t get included on your application? I was a five-time winner of a televised high school academic quiz show in a Korean broadcasting studio called Arirang TV. This was on my application. What wasn’t on my application is that after my appearance, the producer of the TV show asked me if I could participate in a global student debate show hosted by ABC. I told him that it was six months before my Korean SAT so I needed to think about it. I asked him to get back in touch the following week, but he never called =).
Post-MBA career interests? My immediate post-MBA career goal is to return to Samsung and continue pursuing my professional career as a startup acquisitions expert. My strength has always been around understanding how technologies work and applying them to real-life business cases. Working as part of the M&A team, I felt like I finally found a role where I could capitalize on my diverse background and abilities. The experience of executing M&A deals was truly fascinating, and I want to go back and do it better.
Advice to current prospective applicants:
–One thing you would absolutely do again as part of your application process? I started with a very long, comprehensive, thorough retrospective of my life. I tried to re-live those memories and be as descriptive as possible, and then I went back added anything I’d missed. The resulting history book about me provided a great source I could return to whenever I got stuck on my essays with regard to motivations, goals, reasons, strengths, weakness, really everything. Looking back, it also protected me from overstating my achievements. Instead I could focus on specific past improvements and strengths I combined to solve challenging problems.
–One thing you would change or do differently? I would try to get help from alums. I didn’t actively seek out help from alumni because I didn’t want to appear opportunistic (especially after little or no contact for so long). But now that I’m here, I would really appreciate it if anyone I knew wanted to apply and ask me questions.
–Part you would have skipped if you could—and what helped you get through it? Interest and activities, I think I am definitely more on the less of the activities side compared to other people. I really didn’t know what to put up there especially because I didn’t really have the fancy awards that everyone else seemed to have.
A full retrospective of myself helped me get through it, I just choose to present those groups and activities that represent me best, although I haven’t won national awards in them.
What is your initial impression of Darden’s students/culture/community? The Darden community feels very inclusive and safe to be part of. Especially for me and my family, coming from South Korea with little experience of the United States, the Darden culture and atmosphere generated the community really helped me soft land to the newer environment. I hear we get even closer as time goes by so I’m looking forward.
One thing you have learned about Darden that has surprised you? The great learning experience surprisingly exceeded my already high expectations.
Thing you are most anxious about in your first year? Among many things, for me it is keeping up with the academics and exams. There are challenges with having to prepare many cases a day, and just reviewing them after class takes a lot of time. The learning experience is great here, so I really want to translate them into valuable assets.
Thing you are most excited about in your first year? The fact that I am back in school. I haven’t been a student for a long time and it just feels great to be wrong sometimes, make mistakes, cheer for others and free myself (a little bit) from competition.
