- Kukers: Please briefly introduce yourself, including your major, year of graduation, and current field of work or activity. 

- Elena: Hello, my name is Elena Kubitzki, and I’m a KU GSIS alumna from Germany. I entered the GSIS in 2017 and my major was International Studies, with a specialization for International Peace and Security. I currently work in Seoul at the German Embassy to South Korea.

- Kukers: Please briefly describe your current job or research. 

- Elena: I work in the Political Section of our Embassy, with three other colleagues, and the Ambassador being our Head of Section. This means I mainly deal with political issues, although there sometimes is an overlap with our Defense Section or Social Section, as some topics cannot be strictly put into the political category.

- Kukers: Could you provide a bit more detail about your current organization, including your department and main responsibilities? 

- Elena: My main responsibilities are to plan, prepare, and accompany political delegations who travel to Korea from Germany. This includes meetings with the Korean MOFA, the MoU, the Presidential Office, and other government institutions, as well as NGOs and non-government affiliated experts.
Aside from the delegation management, I research and write reports on Korea’s domestic politics, as well as the country’s foreign policy, and inter-Korean affairs.
Lastly, planning and conducting events such as seminars, briefings, or cultural events like movie screenings makes up a smaller, but very enjoyable, part of my work.


Choosing International Studies Inspired by a Dream of Becoming a Diplomat


- Kukers: What motivated you to pursue graduate studies, and why did you choose your particular field of study? 
My motivation for pursuing my graduate studies, and choosing International Studies as my major, was twofold.

- Elena: The first reason was that from a young age, I had dreamt of being a diplomat at the German Federal Foreign Office. Two of my grandparents had been civil servants, and their stories and experiences have always fascinated me. The fact that I had many opportunities at a young age to travel to and stay in different countries (e.g. 3 months in the UK at 6 yrs old, 3 months in New Zealand at 16 yrs old) had further piqued my interest in a career that had a global focus.
As the division of the German Federal Foreign Office that I was interested in had a master’s degree as a basic requisite, I knew that I would want to pursue a graduate degree. And as German diplomats are trained to become “generalists” who know a bit about everything, rather than experts in just one specific field, the choice of International Studies as my major seemed obvious to me.
My bachelor’s degree in Korea Studies had taught me a lot about Korea, its close neighbors Japan and China, and the East-Asia region as a whole. However, I saw a deficit in my knowledge regarding North America, and even Europe to some degree, which is why the broader scale of International Studies seemed to be exactly what I needed to take the first step into becoming a well-educated “generalist”.

The second reason that I chose to attend graduate school – and in particular a graduate school in Korea, was that after finishing my BA in Korea Studies and having spent one year in Seoul as an exchange student, I was determined to live in Korea for a longer period of time, to deepen my understanding of the culture and language. I also was interested to see how International Studies would be framed in this country, as the focus of Korea would certainly differ from that of a European country like Germany. I would always be able to learn more about the European perspective on international politics later on, so I was delighted by the opportunity to broaden my horizon this way.

- Kukers: What was the most memorable project or experience during your graduate studies? If applicable, please share what you learned from that experience. 

- Elena: I think some of the more memorable experiences during my graduate studies were the high-intensity periods like midterms, finals, or the week where all team projects were due at once. Although highly stressful, studying and preparing through the night until the early morning hours is something I won’t forget anytime soon. As most of these nights were spent together with my classmates, keeping each other awake, helping each other refocus, and taking a breather together by taking a walk across the campus to get drinks and snacks at the convenience store was one of the highlights of Korean university life for me. I learned how much teamwork, mutual support, and a shared sense of purpose can make even the most demanding phases feel manageable.
It goes to show that even such challenging moments can be overcome more easily, or at least have a positive aspect to them, if you have great people around you. 
Q6. What was the most challenging moment during your graduate studies, and why? 
I would say that writing my MA thesis was the biggest challenge overall. Although some midterm and finals seasons were intense, and weeks with 5 different presentations or team projects were extremely tiring, they were manageable in comparison to the last semester or two of my studies, where I mainly focused on my thesis.

As the seminars and lectures follow a predetermined schedule decided by each professor, it was easy to just follow their lead and do the assigned work without having to worry too much about the timeline or content of each lesson. In contrast, with my thesis I suddenly had to take care of and be responsible for everything myself. Creating and adhering to a timeline, making sure I hit my weekly writing goal, and not being distracted by irrelevant studies or input was a greater challenge than I had anticipated – especially being all on my own. The thesis guidance sessions with my thesis advisor were invaluable in this regard, but since they were not weekly events, I really had to learn how to manage my research by myself.

- Kukers: What were the key lessons or insights you gained from overcoming that challenge? 

- Elena: In the process of completing my thesis, I definitely managed to strengthen my time management skills and the ability to take responsibility for deadlines and tasks that no one else would hold me accountable for. This was especially helpful later on in a period where I worked as a freelancer, and essentially had to manage my workflow completely independently from any supervisor or boss.
The work on my thesis also allowed me to deepen my ability to simply stick with hard or uncomfortable work, and not procrastinate it indefinitely. As simple as it sounds, learning and practicing how not to give up on a hard task is a skill that has to be honed like any other, and the thesis work was a great opportunity to do so.


International Studies as a Foundation for a Career in Foreign Policy


- Kukers: Which skills or experiences from graduate school have been particularly helpful in your current career? 

- Elena: In my case, aside from the obvious skills like quickly extracting relevant information from long texts, preparing and holding presentations, and so on, the content of my studies were very helpful. As the International Studies major focused a lot on the interplay between different state actors, theories of international relations and related topics, they laid the groundwork for much of the research I do on a daily basis now.
Some of the specialized courses in particular (e.g. Korea-Japan relations, Korea-US relations) have given me a knowledge of the region that has proven useful time and again in my research tasks and in understanding the current foreign policy decisions of the Korean government.
In this regard, my major was a truly fitting preparation for my current career.

- Kukers: In retrospect, what does your graduate school experience mean in the context of your overall career path? 

- Elena: As outlined before, the content of the education I received was and is very helpful for me in my current career, as well as if I were to change to a different position in the same field, as many universal principles were covered. The academic resilience one has to develop in graduate school is also a quality that will be helpful at any point of one’s career path.
Furthermore, having a graduate degree is one of the requisites to apply to the highest rank of civil servants in the German Federal Office for Foreign Affairs, which means that my time at KU has the potential to become one of the essential stepping stones that will lead me to elevate my career to the next level.

- Kukers: In your current field or industry, what core competencies do you think are most important? 

- Elena: While some “hard” skills like language abilities, the ability to quickly read through large amounts of information and extract only the most essential points, and being able to react to sudden changes in a flexible and open-minded manner are important, these qualities are not the only important ones. More often than not, I see problems arise in interpersonal relations that actually end up having a bigger impact on how successful a person is in their job, rather than the impact of their skill set.
Being able to express yourself in a way befitting the work culture of your industry is a core competency, and knowing how to navigate difficult bosses or coworkers will be just as important as knowing how to work an Excel sheet. This is why I would definitely recommend investing some time in brushing up on your people skills, de-escalation skills, and also understanding what boundaries are appropriate in the workplace - both for yourself as well as others.


Don’t Be Afraid to Take on New Challenges and Seize Opportunities


- Kukers: What advice would you like to share with students who are interested in your field or industry?

- Elena: I would advise you to start reading news articles from as many different countries as possible. Many nations have news outlets dedicated to publishing English news, so the entry barrier is quite low in this regard. Reading international news from various sources will not only help build your knowledge about politics, economy, technology, and so on, but will also help you understand how and why different actors frame the same situation differently.

The same goes for books; instead of reading books from authors with a very similar background and experience (for example all US authors, all male authors, all economic major authors, etc.), I would recommend reading as diversely as possible. You don’t always have to like or agree with what you read, but broadening your horizon that way will definitely come in handy in an internationally oriented field.

- Kukers: Are there any types of support or programs you wish the university could provide for current or future graduate students?

- Elena: I think it would be great if KU could offer more opportunities to connect current students (as well as graduates) to representatives of various fields and industries. To my recollection, we didn’t have anything like a “career fair” or career day in which we had a chance to talk to people working in different fields and hear their firsthand experience and advice. In a similar vein, connecting current students and graduates more with each other might be another way to strengthen the network between students and the working world.

- Kukers: Do you have any additional advice regarding graduate school admission or career planning in general?

- Elena: If I try to think of what kind of advice would have been most helpful to me back as a student, I think I would say the following:

Try to take every opportunity to make new experiences and broaden your horizon that you can. Be it an internship, volunteering, or joining a hobby-club off campus, these kind of things will allow you to educate and improve yourself in ways that might not be possible through university life only. Also, compared to a full-time job, you have so much more time as a university student, so now is your chance to fully try out all different kinds of activities to learn more about yourself, your abilities, and your values.

And at university as well as later while job searching: Don’t be scared that you’re not ready or not good enough for some new challenge. The “fake it till you make it” mantra has been around for decades for a reason. It almost never happens that a person becomes the perfect employee first and then applies to the job – usually you know the basics and then learn the rest while working in the relevant field. What ultimately matters is whether you can rise to the challenge and grow into the professional the role requires