{"id":263012,"date":"2026-08-11T03:10:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T03:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/263012\/"},"modified":"2026-08-11T03:10:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T03:10:09","slug":"wharton-club-hosts-annual-high-school-business-competition-in-korea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/263012\/","title":{"rendered":"Wharton club hosts annual high school business competition in Korea"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Wharton Korea Business Undergraduate Society hosted its annual business strategy competition for high schoolers earlier this month.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s Business Black Box was held on Aug. 1 and 2 in Gyeonggi Province, South Korea, where students analyzed problems faced by a Korean company under the guidance of W-KUBS members. In interviews with The Daily Pennsylvanian, Penn students who ran the event discussed their experiences organizing the event and serving as mentors.<\/p>\n

Rising Engineering junior and BBB head director Kate Hong described the event \u2014 which was first held in 2011 \u2014 as \u201cthe first and only business case competition in Korea specifically for high school students.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor many participants, BBB is therefore one of their first serious exposures to business,\u201d Hong told the DP. \u201cNot just learning about business conceptually, but actually being given an ambiguous real-world problem, working under time pressure, developing a strategy with a team, receiving feedback from professionals, and defending their ideas in front of judges, especially from the sponsors.\u201d<\/p>\n

This year, W-KUBS was sponsored by BGF Retail, a Korean company that owns the convenience store chain CU. Participants were asked to \u201cdevelop a differentiated strategy to acquire and increase engagement among foreign customers,\u201d Hong explained.<\/p>\n

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Having been involved with BBB throughout her time at Penn, Hong \u2014\u00a0who served as the event’s main director \u2014\u00a0said her main goal was to \u201cimprove the participant experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

To do so, the organizers gave participants more time to \u201cdigest and apply\u201d feedback, created detailed guidelines for junior mentors, reserved more rehearsal spaces, and introduced a digital portal that centralized competition information, according to Hong.<\/p>\n

She said that organizing the event was an \u201cintensive\u201d experience and that she was \u201cincredibly fortunate to have other W-KUBS members who were willing to put so much of their own time and effort into making this happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rising College sophomore Songeun Lee served as the administrative director for BBB. She told the DP that organizers began preparing for the competition last fall. Lee explained that W-KUBS members recieved support from Penn alumni who were at the competition as senior mentors.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Korean Penn alum were extremely open and willing to help us within the preparation period, which was amazing,\u201d Lee said.<\/p>\n

Rising Engineering junior Rachel Kim told the DP that teamwork was particularly important under time pressure and that she tried to help high school students navigate how to collaborate effectively.<\/p>\n

\u201cEspecially in a 24-hour competition, essentially, I think that sometimes pressure is hard to regulate,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

For rising Wharton sophomore Seohyun Kim, one of the most memorable moments was when her team thanked her at the end of the competition.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat little thank-you note, I would say, was the moment that I felt really proud,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Jessica Kim, a high school student at Seoul International School who won BBB last year, but did not advance to the finals this year, said the experience remained valuable despite the outcome.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe worked hard to make something we could be proud of, and even though we didn\u2019t reach finals, I think we grew a lot,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Hong said she hoped students would learn lessons from BBB that went beyond learning how to solve and present a business problem.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose things can be stressful,\u201d Hong said. \u201cBut I think a lot of personal growth comes from becoming more comfortable with being uncomfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n

For her, the most rewarding part of directing BBB was \u201cseeing most of the participants leave with smiles on their faces, regardless of the result.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Wharton Korea Business Undergraduate Society hosted its annual business strategy competition for high schoolers earlier this month.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263013,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[69,71,70],"class_list":["post-263012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263012\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}