デビー・キム
Debbie Kim
I graduated UT-Austin in 2005 with B.A. in Government and Japanese. I have been studying Japanese language since high school and even majored in the language, but my proficiency was limited mostly in grammar. Luckily, I received a job offer from Japanese company right before the graduation. It was a manufacturing company for various automobile parts and I was just very excited about moving to Japan. There were over 800 people working at the headquarter and there were only 3 non-Japanese employees including myself. Even though part of my job was to contact and communicate with international buyers of the company, the internal communication was performed entirely in Japanese. Since none of my bosses could speak English, I had to put extra effort to learn the language as fast as I could. After working for 2 years, I decided to switch my career to Public Relations or Advertising. The company I worked for published English magazines which were distributed in most of the foreign embassies and major companies in Tokyo. I worked as an account executive and had a chance to work with clients such as major airlines, hotels, or universities. It was such a great opportunity to meet people in different positions in different fields. As of November 2010, I am now back in Austin to go to graduate school. 5 years of working experience in Japan has taught me the career path I would like to pursue, and I realized that I need to get a further education that I learn and apply to my career. It is so good to be home but I already miss living in Japan very much.
私は政治と日本語を専攻して2005年にテキサス大学を卒業しました。卒業後、韓国でインターンシップをしていた時日本の会社に応募して、運よく採用されました。自動車部品関係の会社で海外マーケティングを担当しました。自分の初めの社会生活でしたので適応するのが大変でしたけど、一番難しかった事は言語的な問題でした。会社では外国人もいなかったし、自分の上司も英語がぜんぜんできなかったので社内でのコミュニケーションはもっぱら日本語だけで行われました。当時は大変でしたけど今から思えばその経験のおかげで、自分の日本語の実力が向上したと思っています。二年間ぐらいその会社で働いてから転職を考えてみました。学生の時から報告又広告分野に興味があったので、そういう関係の仕事を探してみました。そうする間、英文雑誌の出版社に就職が出来て広告を担当しました。多様な業界の人たちと交流が出来たのがその仕事の最高の魅力でした。五年間の日本生活を終えて、去年オースティンに戻りました。大学院に進学してもっと専門的な知識を蓄えるのが今の計画です。