What’s Next After Yonsei? Interview with Soon to be Graduate/Start-Up Entrepreneur Minseo Cho Yejin Kim

What’s next after Yonsei? That is a question living in the minds of many students nearing graduation from the Underwood International College (UIC). Undoubtedly, students of UIC tread diverse career paths upon graduation from direct employment to continuing their studies in specialized fields. Minseo Cho, a junior at UIC majoring in Interaction and Information Design, tells us about her experience applying to graduate school in design and plans for a start-up business.

Q1) To start, could you briefly introduce yourself? Hello, I’m Minseo Cho, a Class of 2019 student majoring in Interaction and Information Design (IID) in the Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (HASS) division of UIC. I am currently in the second semester of my junior year and planning to graduate early next year. Upon graduation, I intend to continue my studies in Service Design at graduate school. I’ve worked in Service Design since freshman year in a start-up team, and as of today, I am managing a design stationery brand and a wine curation service.

Q2) For those of us who are not familiar with the field of Service Design, could you please explain what Service Design is and what people in this field work on? Service Design, conceptually, is the designing of the experience related to tangible and intangible services. Everything you see around you — from cups to cosmetics to Uber services — is the product of carefully devised Service Design. When a service is researched and subsequently developed, a system that supports the service is generated. This service is then exposed to users as a feature. In other words, Service Design is the comprehensive mapping out of the system and user’s touchpoint.

Q3) Knowing that you must have given much thought to this decision, what motivated you to continue your studies in graduate school? Since freshman year, I was involved in a student-led start-up team and had the chance to participate in numerous Service Design projects. I naturally became attached to this field and felt the desire to understand it further. There’s no denying that there is much to learn from experiencing things firsthand. However, I also believe that graduate school is essential to organically link the rather fragmentary knowledge we acquire as undergraduates with a structured flow of understanding. I found an area of study I wanted to put the time in amid running a start-up business, which motivated me to entertain the idea of graduate school.

Q4) In applying for graduate school, what are some important aspects to consider? Did you have any priorities in selecting schools? For me, the professors were a priority. Since I had given much thought to addressing environmental issues through Service Design, I wanted to meet a professor who had a background in a similar field. In England, genuine contemplation on environmental preservation takes place on a national level and this is reflected within society. Therefore, I believed there would be much to pick up in everyday life from enrolling in graduate school in the UK. Aside from these factors, graduate school can open paths to another form of networking, so I also considered the alumni pools each school offered.

Q5) Tell us about your academic interests. What goals do you hope to achieve as a graduate school student? Like I mentioned, I am especially interested in environmental preservation – more specifically, correct recycling. There’s considerable progress in raising awareness on the issue of protecting the environment by multiple studies. On the contrary, there is little progress on actually inducing efforts to preserve the environment. Through my graduate studies, I aim to find the key to moving from simply raising awareness on the importance of environmental preservation to taking tangible action.

Q6) What are some expectations or possible fantasies you have about graduate school? I’m curious about the outcome of this research project I have in mind. I have high hopes that it concludes on a level where it enriches our society and the environment. Plus, I’m pretty eager about day-to-day life since I would be living in an entirely foreign country.

Q7) What career options do you expect upon graduation? Do you have any specific careers you would like to pursue? For now, I’ll be coming back to my start-up career. Upon achieving the goals I mentioned earlier, I could develop a service for inducing proper recycling based on those studies. The attitude in designing services, supported by logical reasoning attained from my studies, will be valuable across the board for my start-up where data-based decision making is crucial, regardless of the business item. In the end, I’ll likely be working a succession of start-up businesses but getting employed as a service designer for the understanding of an organization is another option I am considering.

Q8) In your opinion, do you think the diverse and unique majors of UIC, especially HASS, would be a plus for those pursuing start-up careers of their own? I think there is no better place to build a start-up career than here at HASS, especially in the Techno-Arts Division (TAD). In IID exclusively, we have courses on Interaction Design, Information Architecture, User Experience Research Method and so on, and are thus given the chance to understand the interaction taking place between services and their users. These courses clarify the steps of logic needed for mapping out and designing services. My major was a great step to my start-up career. In particular, the capstone project, led by TAD students, is an appropriate course to experience a mock start-up business, as students must work to establish a service based on development, planning and design altogether.

Q9) Any tips or recommendations for other students thinking of taking a similar path as you? For those considering graduate school, I recommend continuously pondering on your field of research. It should sound fascinating to you, but more importantly, it should be an area that could answer questions you may have about the world. I hope everyone experiences self-reflection to figure this out in the process. On the other hand, if you are thinking of diving into the start-up business, I want to tell you to go for a quick attempt and a quick failure. Take a chance to leap off the cliff – that’s when you start building your parachute!