Published 9/18/2024 by Praniti Gulyani
A year after the conclusion of her exchange semester through the University of California Education Abroad Program (UCEAP), Anna Jung sits behind her computer screen with sparkling eyes. It is 11:30 am on a Saturday morning in Seoul, Korea and Jung— a third-year-student at Seoul National University— is ready to make the most of her weekend, a truly Blue-and-Gold attribute that she learned during her four-month-long stay at Cal.
An English and Business Administration Major, she begins the conversation by attributing this innovative academic pursuit to her diverse coursework at Cal. “During my time here, I took a combination of English and Business classes such as Prose Non Fiction with Professor Amy Rowland and a couple of HAAS Business classes,” Jung says.
“I’ve always known that my choice of subjects is very distinct, and my experiences at Cal have helped me understand that the path that I am on is actually very right for me. I’m interested in Business Consulting, and in this field— it’s very important to be succinct, along with maintaining a solid grasp over the right words to use,” she explains.
Describing how her assignments completed as a part of her UC Berkeley coursework helped reinforce the importance of being brief yet impactful— skills that are essential to her choice of career as a Business Consultant— Jung talks about the “one page long assignments” that were assigned during her Consumer Insights and Sustainable Business Consulting Projects. “On the face of it, these assignments weren’t very demanding,” Jung says.
“We just had to write one page, and as compared to the relatively longer English assignments, this seemed to be easy to accomplish. However, it is that one-page-limit that helped me reckon with the understanding that while long sentences and flowery language are great for literary papers and other forms of writing, in most business situations— cutting down the ‘fluff’ and sticking to only what’s necessary is the way to go,” she adds.
Moving onto the more difficult ‘homesickness’ conversation, Jung emphasizes the importance of acknowledging the inevitability of this emotion. “I think homesickness is a part of the process. It’s always involved somehow, whether you’re traveling from the East Coast to the West Coast, or whether you’re an international student. The key to overcoming it, in my opinion, is by doing a lot of small things that make you very happy,” she advises.
Exemplifying her ‘find joy in the small things’ ideology, Jung elaborates on the personal essay that she wrote as a part of her Prose Non Fiction class, and the unusual connection that it helped her reclaim with her home university.
“While I was loving my life at Cal, I have to say that I did encounter homesickness at several points. This is why I wrote about my dad’s car and the many memories that were associated with it. Whenever I would see a car that was similar to the car owned by my dad back home parked on the street, I would look at it wistfully, hoping that the door would open and he would step out— but obviously, that wasn’t possible,” Jung says.
“The one special thing about Prose Non Fiction was that we almost had a student from each part of the globe,” she says. “This reminded me of a College Writing Class in my Home University, that is in fact, an important graduation requirement. In this class, students from all majors— ranging from Engineering to Humanities— are encouraged to come together and write. It’s that one class where you can hear a lot of very different experiences, and some people present themselves as really great storytellers,” she adds.
In addition to uplifting— and furthering— her career lens, Jung describes how her experiences at Cal taught her the importance of open communication in a rigorous academic setting.
“I think a lot of times, as students, we tend to possess a very paradoxical mindset. For instance, when we’re doing a lot, we somewhere feel as though we should maybe pause a while. On the other hand, when we’re working in a comparatively relaxed atmosphere, we feel the pressing need to tighten our reins and do a lot more. These emotions are hard to deal with, but all of us have been there, and I think that to avoid situations like burn out and complete fatigue, it’s important to communicate with our professors and teaching assistants,” she explains.
Concluding with an allusion to her favorite moment at Cal, Jung refers to her experiences at one specific football game. “It’s been a while now, so I don’t exactly remember who we were playing against,” she says. “But what I do remember is that we won, and when I was cheering with the rest of my friends, I felt consumed by the Berkeley spirit. For a moment, I felt as though I was a Cal student all along. I almost forgot that I was from Seoul National University,” she smiles.