Sharon Jun, Flex M.B.A. ’08

When Sharon Jun wants to know something, she finds a way to educate herself. Whether it’s pursuing a degree or sitting down for coffee with retired executives, Jun figures out a way to attain her goals.

“I really took advantage of the Executive Partners network at William and Mary,” says Jun, who immigrated to the Unites States from South Korea with her family when she was 9. “I met with 15 professionals, including an executive from the oil industry and another who worked for IBM.

After earning her undergraduate degree in English Literature, Jun went on to pursue an M.S. in electronic commerce. She attended the Flex MBA program at the Mason School, while working for Hewlett Packard.

“When I was working for Hewlett Packard as a business analyst I enjoyed helping Fortune 500 companies resolve process-oriented and systems related issues,” says Jun. “When I became a team leader I realized that I wanted to gain a deeper understanding of the core areas in business.”

Jun, who served as vice president of the MBA student government, believes her Mason classroom experiences prepared her for the corporate world. She gives a lot of credit to three courses and the professors who taught them.

“One class I remember vividly exposed me to what it was like to be part of a business environment outside the United States,” says Jun. That class was Professor Richard Flood’s “Business in Europe.”

As part of the course, she traveled to France and Belgium to attend seminars sponsored by École Supérieure de Commerce de Paris and learned about European corporations and the influence of European Union (EU).

“The international exposure in that class helped me to become more aware of different cultures,” says Jun. “It prepared me for training employees in India and Eastern Europe

Todd Mooradian’s marketing course taught her how to present projects and proposals in a persuasive manner using empirical data, she adds. She also took an independent studies course in financial analysis with Professor Vladimir Atanasov.

“The outstanding faculty truly provided individual attention,” says Jun, “which helped to maximize my learning experience. While my reason for selecting the school was based on its location and academic rigor, it turned out to be one of the best decisions in life where I gained life-long friendship, solid foundation in the field, and invaluable perspectives from industry professionals.”

Currently, she is pursuing her Ph.D. in instructional systems at Florida State University (FSU), where she received scholarships both from FSU and the Korean American Scholarship Foundation. Jun approaches her career aspirations much like her education, when she sees an area that needs work she tries to improve on it. Ultimately, her goal is to help others and bridge gaps in business.

“My research area is in knowledge transfer and management and human performance improvement,” says Jun. “My plan is to develop helpful tools for corporations to disseminate information during mergers and acquisitions process.”