Why did you choose the Huntsman Program?

I have always been interested in languages as I worked on an indigenous language preservation platform in high school. As such, I thought that joining the Huntsman Program and being able to fully immerse myself learning Spanish from scratch would greatly help my personal development. At the same time, living in several different countries had made me very interested in the field of international relations and the way Huntsman combined this with a business program was perfect for my interests.

What has been your favorite thing about the Program? What aspects of the Program have been most useful to you?

I met most of my closest friends at Penn through the Program very early on in my college life, which is something a lot of Penn students can’t say. The community is incredible – talking to classmates and upperclassmen made me feel so much more at home while at Penn and helped me to understand how to best pursue my passions. The language learning aspect of the Program has been most useful to me as I’ve learned Spanish from scratch in the past three years.

Which courses have you enjoyed the most? Why?

OIDD 290 – I very much enjoyed how this course taught us interesting ways of framing and understanding human behavior

OIDD 291 – I thought this course was very useful in terms of practicing negotiations – which is a skill I hadn’t been able to practice as much.

MUSC 030 – This course taught me how to better appreciate and identify music from various eras – a skill I will take with me throughout my life

How do you feel Huntsman has prepared/will prepare you to reach your career and personal goals?

Huntsman has taught me how to interact with individuals from varied backgrounds and thrive in settings that are foreign to me. At the same time, I’ve met a strong network of very talented individuals who I know I will be able to work with to develop our shared career goals in the future.

What skills will you take away from your study abroad experience? What part of this experience was most valuable to you?

Learning to interact with locals in a very different environment improved my language and interpersonal skills as the Spanish school and grading system was very different from what I had experienced in the Philippines and the US. Becoming very close friends with European students who had very different outlooks on life and who came from backgrounds that were not common at Penn was most valuable to me.

Where have you interned?

In the Summer of 2017 I interned at Romero Capital in New York. For Summer 2018 I interned at McKinsey and Company in Boston, and this summer (Summer 2019) I will be at McKinsey and Company again.