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Student Profiles

Takahiro Mizuno International MBA, Boston University 2004-2005 Pre-MBA Program 2003-2004 Sales & Marketing Mie, Japan Nagoya University of Foreign Studies

When Takahiro Mizuno was an undergraduate at Nagoya University of Foreign Studies, he majored in British and American Studies. He thought that learning English well would be the key to his future success. He had played baseball for more than ten years, and was the Vice Captain of the university baseball team, playing first base. Although his team did not win any championships, he loved every minute of playing baseball. It helped him develop leadership skills that will be valuable in his career. Since he planned to become a high school teacher, he obtained an official certificate for teaching high school English. After graduation he went to the United States to improve his English and experience living in a foreign country. Spending six months at the University of Indianapolis, he then moved to the University of California in San Diego. He liked both places and enjoyed living in two very different parts of the United States. Returning to Japan, he found himself on a long waiting list to get a high school position teaching English and instead accepted a short-term teaching assignment instructing second grade students. He really enjoyed teaching the young students: "Every day was like playing games and doing sports together."

While studying in the United States, he enjoyed meeting people from all over the world and thought about selling products internationally. Without realizing it, his interests were changing from a safe, stable teaching position to an aggressive, challenging career in international business. Securing a job at a company that sold machines and tools for large construction projects globally, he learned how to sell products and used his English language training to communicate with customers and agents throughout the world. He left this company to join a firm that allowed him to experience the challenges of foreign travel and meeting international customers at distant worksites. This job, which he held for three years, included much travel (twelve oversea trips in 2002) and extensive learning about sales, marketing, finance, accounting, and communication.

Realizing he needed a more systematic understanding of the skills necessary for international marketing and sales, Taka decided to pursue an MBA. He enrolled in the Pre-MBA Program at Northeastern University first so that he would have time to select the right MBA program and prepare his applications. Before deciding to come to Northeastern, he had looked carefully at other pre-MBA programs. He chose Northeastern’s program because it was so comprehensive and included much instruction to help him prepare for the TOEFL and GMAT tests. Of even greater importance, he needed all of the program’s preparatory business courses to help him realize his goal of getting an MBA because his undergraduate major had not been in business.

Taka applied to five MBA programs. He was accepted to four (including the Coop MBA at Northeastern University) and withdrew his application from the remaining school so that he could start classes in the International MBA Program at Boston University. As part of that program he has recently completed twelve weeks of classes in China and Japan. He will return to Boston to continue his MBA studies in September.

Akiko Takahashi Pre-MBA Program Fall Semester, 2003 Marketing Specialist NTT COMWARE CORPORATION Tokyo Japan Meiji University 1997

While I was studying at Meiji University, I majored in economics with a specialization in small and medium-sized company management. During my junior and senior years, I was a member of a student team with twelve other students, and we studied the deregulation and restructuring of the sake industry in Japan. From this work, I learned how to analyze an industry, collect information from a variety of sources, cooperate with team members, and organize the workload for a complicated project. During this project, I saw the changes created by deregulation, the growth of new business, and how small companies could create business for themselves by offering new services for their customers. I found the concept of developing a strategy to offer customers new services exciting and intellectually stimulating. This interest led me to work at NTT COMWARE, where I work to create strategies to offer new services to enterprises.

In developing strategies to introduce new services throughout Japan, I gained experience working with partners who could help my company realize its goals.An example of one of the services I developed as a team leader was a database driven web front-end system for a leading university in Japan. This system enabled senior students to use the internet to search for jobs after graduation. This effort has been implemented successfully and has helped thousands of students find their first job and thereby launch their careers. However, as globalization has created the need to think of new services which can be offered globally, I have become more aware of the need to have the experience and ability to develop strategies with corporations and partners to deliver new services worldwide. As the largest market in the world, the United States offers potential customers and partner companies for alliances. In addition, English is the language of international business. For these reasons, I chose to spend the Fall Semester of 2003 in the Pre-MBA Program at Northeastern University. Not only was I able to improve my English skills, but I also gained the opportunity to take courses about American management and business economics. I believed that this would offer me the skills and a way of thinking to help me develop the ability to build strategies so that my company can offer new services on a worldwide basis.

As the Fall Semester ends and I prepare to return to my position at my company, I feel a deep sense of achievement and more confidence. The course was very challenging, but I feel proud that I was able to handle the workload. I feel more confident that I can handle business dealings and research with less help from an interpreter. Also, I have a better feel for how Americans think. This should be most helpful to me in my work.

Guillermo Alvarez Co-op MBA Spring 2004 Pre-MBA Program 2002 B.A. Business Administration Universidad Metropolitana 2001

Guillermo Alvarez, who is from Venezuela,has always been interested in business. While studying at his university, he started two businesses. A feasibility study on running a coffee shop he conducted for a class project at Universidad Metropolitanain Caracas, Venezuela convinced him that such a business could be quite profitable. Soon after, he openedthe Urban Café coffee shop to provide fast service with high quality for office workers. He broke even in the first month and made a profit in the second. A year later, while still a student, he partnered in a new company set up to distribute Texaco industrial and automotive lubricants. "While hiring 14 employees and developing a computerized administrative system,I learned about the difficulties of dealing with economic and currency fluctuations as well as the challenges of balancing full-time study with running two growing businesses."

After finishing university,Guillermo recognized the advantages of getting an MBA to prepare for an increasingly competitive business environment. Combining twin desires to improve his English and study the vigorous business markets of the United States, he sold his restaurant and came to Boston, a city with a reputation for history and charm that had many highly regarded business programs. He decided to enter the Pre-MBA Program at Northeastern as a first step in order to improve his English, prepare for graduate studies, and gain time to choose an MBA program. There, courses in economics, marketing and accounting improved his English language skills and working with business cases taught him how American classes operate. He decided to pursue his MBA at Northeastern because of its Co-op program. "I liked the idea of sandwiching a six-month paid position between periods of academic study. I also was impressed with the recognition Northeastern's academic programs had achieved in national surveys of U. S. MBA programs and wanted to contribute to thesuccess of the university."

Finishing his Pre-MBA Program in June, 2002 Guillermo applied to the MBA Program at Northeastern, joined the entering September 2002 class, and plans to graduate with his degree in 2004. Currently preparing for his Co-op job, he hopes to secure a banking position in New York City.

Northeastern University is an equal opportunity/affirmative action educational institution and employer.