Interview with Song Eun-young (GBA, class of 10), alumnus, regarding her appointment as a professor at City University
- bizskk
- Hit982
- 2023-02-23
Song Eun-young, a 10th class of Global Business Administration at our university, is currently teaching at City University of Hong Kong with a major in Marketing Consumer Psychology. She says it is important to choose a role model, because it helps me to specify when and how I should do it, and it gives me confidence that I can do it because he did it. Hear more details through interviews.
1. Hello, nice to meet you. Please introduce yourself and the field you are currently researching!
Hello, nice to meet you. I am studying marketing, especially Consumer Behavior. I'm mainly researching how new technologies, especially smartphones and algorithms, affect people's consumption decisions.
2. I heard that you are a professor of marketing at City Univ. of Hong Kong. I'm curious about the process of getting hired. Please explain why you applied.
The most important thing for me was the environment where I could do my research freely. The university in Hong Kong are all public, so the government's funding for research is very abundant, and there are many environments that give consideration to focus on research. Also, I came to Hong Kong because it is geographically close to Korea, so I was fascinated by the fact that I can travel with my family and friends more often.
The process of getting hired is long and complicated, but to sum it up, by the end of my Ph.D., I'm going to participate in a big conference event called 'job market' and pass it after two interviews. Is it similar to the process of corporate public recruitment?
More specifically, when the 'job market' opens, you apply to schools by creating a package of papers you're working on and what kind of researcher you're going to be, just like you're applying to a company. After that, the selected successful candidates will have the first round of interviews, and the first round will be mainly one-to-many interviews, which will briefly introduce themselves and research topics for 20 to 30 minutes. After that, the selected successful candidates will conduct the second interview. During the second interview, usually visit the school for about 2 nights and 3 days, but I replaced it with zoom due to COVID-19. I have one-on-one interviews with professors at the school for a day or two, present my thesis for an hour and a half to two hours, and meet with the dean, the head of the school's administrative posts related to the recruitment of professors. If you visit the school in person, on the evening after the schedule, you attend a party and have closer and personal time with the department professors. After that, the school finally decides the successful candidates through meetings and votes.
3. Until recently, there must have been a lot of disruptions in lectures due to COVID-19. How did you overcome it in Hong Kong?
I did the all the classes online, but I think students must have had a harder time than I did. My class is called Business Case Analysis and Communication, so 'communication' is a must, but it was not easy for students to participate freely online. In order to overcome the limitations, I made a lot of efforts, and I often had small zoom meetings with student outside of class, and I tried to receive continuous feedback and reflect it.
4. What are some of the most memorable activities you participated in during your undergraduate days?
In fact, during my undergraduate years, I didn't get very good grades or participate in extracurricular activities. I wasn't faithful to my studies or school life, and I was very interested in fashion, so I was busy doing various activities in that field. However, the marketing class I took in the first semester of the fourth grade was a good experience. Luckily, I was able to gain research experience as a research assistant(RA) when I was an undergraduate, so I was able to take a Ph.D. program right away without doing a master's degree. At that time, I realized how fun and happy research was while doing RA and dreamed of a career as a professor.
5. If you have any research results published by the conference or papers published in famous journals, please introduce them together.
Most recently, our top journal, the Journal of Marketing Research, published a paper titled Phone and Self: How Smartphone Use Increases the Preference for Uniqueness. The paper found that when consumers use smartphones, they make choices that show their individually compared to when they use ordinary computers.
6. Please tell me about your future research plan.
I plan to study how the use of smartphones affects people's behavior. We're studying not only consumer behavior, but also how smartphones affect people's social relationships and cognitive abilities.
7. If you have a chance to visit your alma mater, where do you want to go the most? What's the reason.
Actually, I visited Sungkyunkwan University for the first time in a long time this early summer, but all the stores I liked and went to often disappeared...(Crying) I liked a really small coffee-take-out restaurant called 'Holic' in front of the main gate and a cafe that used to bake and sell delicious cakes called 'Ramblas', but both of them seemed to have gone bankrupt. It was such a bummer. If I may recommend a place that still exists... Um... Waffle at the faculty hall? I remember going to eat waffles after lunch.
8. Lastly, please tell me what you want to say or give advice to your juniors at Sungkyunkwan University's business school.
(feat. Business school students preparing for employment abroad)
I think role models are important. A role model helps me shape when, what, and how, and gives me confidence that I can do it because he's done it. And if I follow my role model, I think I can achieve a virtuous cycle of becoming someone's role model someday. I sincerely support you to find your own role model and become someone else's role model.