Summer stories: Taegyeong Kim’s internship
Taegyeong Kim comes from South Korea and currently studies in the IB program at EF Academy New York. He did a summer internship with EF Hong Kong where he had the opportunity to learn about finance and business management. Taegyeong plans to work in finance and study it in university. He spoke with us in June and explained why his internship provided him with such a valuable opportunity for his future studies and career.
Q. Tell us about your internship
I had many great experiences during my Hong Kong internship. First, I met many new people and they’ve helped me a lot, especially if I don’t understand something. Second, I learned many things about the financial aspects of a business, such as payback terms, invoices, etc. And finally, with the 9 am to 6:30 pm work schedule, I was able to experience the pain of office life that I didn’t know before as a student.
Q. What did you hope to gain from this experience?
I wanted to have many different experiences. This is because I also will work for a company when I grow up and I wanted to see what it’s like to be an employee and work in an office. I wanted to learn what they do and what the day looks like. I also hoped that these experiences would bring me to make decisions about my future career.
Q. What’s been your favorite project?
My favorite project in the internship was working with the EF Korea office. They gave me an assignment that checks the invoice and figures out if it’s right or not. I was very proud of myself to gain experience in what different employees do.
Q. What do you think you’re learning here?
Basically, I’ve been learning about the finances of a company and how employees deal with payments. I was interested in that work. I also realized that the finance is one of the most important things for company operations. Besides that, I have been learning about socializing at work. I improved my social skills and English skills by working with the different employees.
Q. How has the internship connected with what you study at EF Academy?
This internship experience will connect to my IB business HL class at EF Academy since I learned about finance and work life. For example, I will learn about accounting and finance in next year’s business class, and now I knew some of the parts, so it will be beneficial to understand in the business class next year.
Q. How can you apply what you’ve learned to your future career?
I hope this internship will have a good influence on my future career. I want to work in the financial field after I graduate from university. I’ve made many experiences in that field and I was able to figure out my shortcomings. I think the internship has helped me to improve all of my weaknesses very well.