posco AMERICA

POSCO-America recently hosted a short-term internship program for students on scholarships in line with plans to globalize the organization. The internship was an opportunity for the students to learn about the export/sales functions of the company. Koo Jae-kwan was among the group of students chosen to take part in POSCO’s first Company-University scholarship student program. He was a recipient of the WEST Program initiative, which was sponsored by the Ministry of Education and Science Technology. It allowed him to spend a year in New York City. Following is Koo’s experience at POSCO-America.

I spent five months working as an intern for POSCO-America, POSCO’s subsidiary in the United States. As a major in new materials engineering, I was originally assigned to work as a steel engineer upon joining POSCO. Thus the internship at POSCO- America, which exposed me to marketing and sales, was a new challenge and opportunity for me.

Assigned to Sales 1 Team, I was responsible for work relating to Ford automobiles. My daily responsibilities included organizing shipping documents for imports, entering Goods in Transit information, following up on insurance and updating inventory details by communicating with MPPC. Most of my work was related to the transport of auto steel plate coils manufactured at Gwangyang, which were sent to the Manzanillo port of Mexico before being delivered to POSCO-America.

My biggest reward from this experience was that I developed a wider perspective of POSCO’s business. My previous internship at Gwangyang was an opportunity to learn about POSCO products and the manufacturing process, whereas this recent internship taught me about what processes the products went through to reach the end-user. In particular, I was able to witness firsthand the importance of communication among clients, overseas subsidiaries and engineers in resolving product claim issues.

I will be returning to school in Korea to complete my senior studies, with plans to focus further studies on engineering, financial management and trade. I am eager to gain knowledge in other fields outside my major to build the trans-disciplinary capabilities required of successful POSCO employees.

chc234@posco.com