Graduation Behind.
Excellence Ahead.

LEEDS Global Business Seminar — Tokyo & Kyoto, Japan

Spring 2025 · University of Colorado Boulder

An immersive international business program exploring how Japanese firms think about competition, corporate culture, and long-term value — and what Western businesses can learn from them.

• Traveled to Tokyo and Kyoto as part of a structured academic cohort, visiting companies and engaging with business leaders firsthand

• Examined how Japanese organizations prioritize sustainability of purpose over aggressive expansion — and how that shapes brand loyalty, employee culture, and community trust

• Reflected on cross-cultural business communication and the role of relationship-building in markets where trust precedes transaction

• Published two original essays on Medium documenting insights from the experience — one on Japanese work culture and business philosophy, one on the personal impact of immersive international travel

  
  

Speak Up! CCA — Persuasive Public Speaking Competition

1st Place Champion · Community College of Aurora · 2023

A college-wide persuasive speaking competition judged by faculty from the communications and business departments alongside college executives, evaluated on argument strength, delivery, and authenticity.

• Competed across three rounds — preliminary, semifinal, and final — advancing through each on the strength of both content and delivery

• Wrote and delivered an original speech advocating for workers' rights and unionization in the video game industry, using EA's 2019 Anthem as a case study in what happens when creative talent is pushed past its limits

• Argued that sustainable work-life balance isn't just a moral imperative — it's a business one, and that companies who invest in their people produce better products

• Won the final round in front of a live audience, competing against speakers across disciplines and speech styles

  
  

Japan America Society of Colorado — Japan Cup

Level 4 Champion · Spring 2025

The Japan Cup is an annual Japanese language and culture competition hosted by the Japan America Society of Colorado, open to students from high school through college. Level 4 represents completion of second-year college Japanese proficiency.

• Competed as part of a team through four rounds spanning cultural knowledge, written language, spoken Japanese, and contextual language use

• Advanced directly from the first round to the finals after earning enough points to skip the intermediate round — one of the top-performing teams at the level

• Won the championship.

• Practiced and hosted team review sessions for 5 months in the lead up to the competition. I coordinated meetings, created study plans, and worksheets with my professor who sponsored our team to compete.

What makes this one personal: I first entered the Japan Cup in Spring 2019 as a Level 1 competitor in my freshman year of high school and lost in the first round. COVID cancelled the years that followed, and the competition sat unfinished. Six years later, as a college junior, I came back at Level 4 and won. It's a small detail on paper. But it represents everything about why I never let Japanese go, even when it was hard to hold onto.

For more experiences, see my projects