Tech Career Podcast: Jason on Deferred MBAs, Startups and PM Goals

Updated 2026/10/16

This is an edited transcript of a podcast episode. I was glad to be invited onto CakeResume’s tech career podcast, Talent Connect, to talk about the Deferred MBA, startups, running a personal brand, and applying to study abroad.

If you first want to understand what a Deferred MBA is and how schools compare on eligibility and deadlines, start with “What Is a Deferred MBA? 2026 Comparison of Top US Deferred MBA Programs”. How to prepare the essays and interviews is covered in “Deferred MBA Application Strategy and Essays”.

🙋🏻‍♂️ 🙋🏻‍♀️ Guests: Jason & Elena
🎤 CakeResume hosts: Jo & Claire

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🎤 Jo: Hello everyone, and welcome to Tech Career. I’m Jo, your host. Tech Career is a podcast produced by CakeResume, where we invite people working in tech, digital and other fields to share their career stories and perspectives. Let’s hear what they have to say. Hi everyone, I’m Jo.

🎤 Claire: Hi everyone, I’m Claire. Today’s episode is one of our main interviews. How did you plan the start of your career? After college, should you go straight into a job, or study more first, which usually means grad school, and then work?

A while ago we were chatting with Elena, one of our RC colleagues, and she told us she was planning to study abroad. She had found Jason, a creator who posts about studying abroad, on Instagram. With his help she finished all of her application documents, and in the end she got in.

That made us curious about the person behind it. The more I learned about Jason’s background, the more unusual it looked. He started a business as a student, and before he had even graduated from college he was admitted to an MBA, a degree people normally apply for after a few years of work. Then, instead of flying straight to the US, he started a full-time job in Taiwan and planned to begin his studies abroad the year after next.

Jason has run startups, held a job, built a following online, and is about to start life as an international student. How did he get here? Today we’ve invited him to tell us.

What personal traits do others see in Jason?

🎤 Interviewer: Jason, which of your traits or skills are you aware of yourself, and also hear people praise often?

🙋🏻‍♂️ Jason: Two come to mind. The first is that I can talk to anyone in the way that works for them. There’s a Chinese saying for it: speak human to humans and ghost to ghosts. That’s probably tied to the second one, which is project management, or getting a team to agree on something and then finish it together.

Everyone has a different personality and cares about different things, so I first try to learn what someone likes to hear and how they like to communicate. I probably handle every person a little differently when we talk. And if something said in “ghost language” has to be passed on to a “human,” I’ll say it again in the human way.

Jason’s lesser-known traits

🎤 Interviewer: What traits or skills do you think you have, but rarely hear other people mention?

🙋🏻‍♂️ Jason: I can put up with boring, repetitive work really well. At our startup, for example, I sometimes had to handle customer service for the website and sort out small, fiddly problems. When I did business development before, I was in charge of writing and sending emails to set up conversations. Those are trivial or repetitive tasks, but I never find them boring. If anything, I get keen on finding an efficient way to deal with them.

🎤 Interviewer: I really admire that, because I get bored super easily. Though I think what counts as boring depends on the person. I’m actually more on the timid side, so coming up with lots of creative new ideas can scare me a bit, and repetitive work sometimes makes me feel safe. Do it long enough and it gets boring too, so I see it as a way of building patience.

🎤 Interviewer: I think I get what you mean. Trivial work that always produces something, and that someone always needs, makes you feel like you’re getting things done.

🙋🏻‍♂️ Jason: Right, although in terms of productivity it may not be that high, and it definitely eats up your time.

Which traits did Jason only notice after others pointed them out?

🎤 Interviewer: And the last one: Jason, what traits or skills did you never think you had or never noticed, but were surprised to hear from other people?

🙋🏻‍♂️ Jason: Business development. I’m fairly introverted, and I never thought I was cut out for sales or BD. But through two startups and my full-time job, I slowly realized that introverts can have their own strengths in business development. Maybe you can use empathy to figure out what a client or the other side needs, and then pitch a solution.

🎤 Interviewer: I’m curious, did you have to pitch or do BD at the time, so you just forced yourself to do it? Or what was the situation that made you try it even though you saw yourself as an introvert?

🙋🏻‍♂️ Jason: It was the startup environment. If you don’t do BD, there’s no money. So I was forced into it. We had to find overseas YouTubers to work with us, for example.

🎤 Interviewer: Got it. So you’re saying the introvert’s advantage is empathy?

🙋🏻‍♂️ Jason: Yes, and I’d add sincerity. I may be a bit introverted, but I can be sincere with people.

🎤 Interviewer: Right. But doesn’t it put you under a lot of pressure?

🙋🏻‍♂️ Jason: Yes, it does. It takes a lot out of me.

🙋🏻‍♀️ Elena: That reminds me. I didn’t really know what BD involved, so I asked some BD colleagues what their team actually does, and whether the team was full of extroverts. They said no, they’re all introverts. Not many extroverts at all. I was like, really? And then I wondered why introverts would want this job.

🎤 Interviewer: Our BD and RC colleagues are both on the sales side, and every time I see them they’re on the phone nonstop, especially the RC team. Exactly. I’m in awe, because I hate making phone calls.

🙋🏻‍♀️ Elena: Yes, but after talking with them I found out a lot of the BD people are introverts.

How did our colleague Elena meet Jason?

🎤 Interviewer: Elena is how we came across Jason in the first place, so we’d like her to be our bridge again and tell us how she met him and how they worked together. First, Elena, how did you find out about Jason, and how did you get in touch with him?

🙋🏻‍♀️ Elena: I’d followed Jason’s Instagram for almost two years, because I’d always wanted to study abroad and had been preparing for it. When I got to the application documents, I compared a few editing services and decided to ask Jason for help. I messaged him on Instagram and sent him the first draft of my SOP, and we worked together from there.

🎤 Interviewer: Oh, what’s an SOP?

🙋🏻‍♀️ Elena: A Statement of Purpose, basically a study plan. If you apply to grad school in the US, pretty much every school asks for one.

🎤 Interviewer: While you were putting it together, was there any part of the process you especially liked, or that felt different from what you expected?

🙋🏻‍♀️ Elena: I’d say it was digging into my own experiences. Before I talked with Jason, I didn’t have much confidence in my background. My test scores weren’t very high, and I had no full-time work experience, only internships, so I felt I couldn’t compete with other applicants for the schools I wanted. After our conversations I realized my internship was directly related to the program I was applying to, which was a pretty big advantage. On top of that, some of my club and classroom experiences could be connected to the program too. Those two things were the big surprises for me.

What makes Jason different as a study-abroad advisor?

🎤 Interviewer: Jason, as someone who advises people on studying abroad, what do you think sets you apart?

🙋🏻‍♂️ Jason: I don’t see myself as an agency, or as someone doing this for the money. Most of the time I want to understand people’s backgrounds and why they want to study abroad, and then help them write their application essays. The biggest difference between me and the professional, full-time study-abroad agencies is probably that I help people through the application more like an older schoolmate or a friend would.

🎤 Interviewer: Is that why your account name calls you an older schoolmate, “Senior Jason”?

🙋🏻‍♂️ Jason: Yes.

🎤 Interviewer: Got it, it feels very approachable. From Elena’s introduction we know Jason is an Instagram creator who posts about studying abroad. Next we’d like to hear more about why he started this personal brand and how it went.

Jason got into a “Deferred MBA” as he was finishing college. Why did he apply, and what is a Deferred MBA?

🎤 Interviewer: At the start of the episode we said Jason seems to run a little ahead of everyone else’s clock. He was admitted to an MBA before he had graduated from college, and that experience of applying and getting in is why he started his account. The program he applied to is unusual, though. I’d never heard of it, and only through this did I find out there’s something called a Deferred MBA. Could you explain what a Deferred MBA is, and how you found it?

🙋🏻‍♂️ Jason: You can think of a Deferred MBA as another way into an MBA: early admission. Schools admit students in their senior year of college or final year of grad school and give them 2 to 5 years to work or start their own business, and the students can decide when to enroll. Honestly, I found this route by accident. My undergrad was in business administration, so I was originally looking at a Master in Management, a kind of mini MBA, the MIM. But I found there aren’t many MIM programs in the US, and most top schools only offer the MBA. While I was scrolling through school websites, I noticed MBA programs had launched this new admissions route, the Deferred MBA, which lets college graduates like us with no work experience get admitted early.

🎤 Interviewer: You mentioned there were fewer of the degrees you originally wanted in the US. So you were pretty sure you wanted to go to the US?

🙋🏻‍♂️ Jason: Yes. When I chose where to apply, the US was the only country on my list.

🎤 Interviewer: What was the reasoning?

🙋🏻‍♂️ Jason: Mainly my future career. I want to work in software and tech, and as a country the US probably has a somewhat stronger software and tech industry, so it fits my career path better.

🎤 Interviewer: Makes sense. So why did you decide on a Deferred MBA? Did you already plan in college to delay your enrollment?

🙋🏻‍♂️ Jason: When I decided to apply to grad school in my senior year, I only looked at programs that let you defer. There were a few reasons. The biggest was that I wanted to go back to Taiwan after college to do my military service, and then go abroad to study. So I only applied to programs that allowed deferral. The second was flexibility: I could work for a while and then decide whether to study abroad at all. The Deferred MBA fit all of those conditions perfectly. I could finish all the application documents while still in college, including really hard tests like the GRE and IELTS.

I also thought I had an advantage in that applicant pool. Only people without work experience can apply for a Deferred MBA, and since my college years were fairly full and I had startup experience, I could stand out a bit more than others and had a shot at getting in.

🎤 Interviewer: So the only requirement is no full-time job?

🙋🏻‍♂️ Jason: Right. Most schools require you to be a college senior or in your last year of grad school, with no full-time experience at all.

What difficulties did Jason face applying for the Deferred MBA? Why self-reflection matters so much

🎤 Interviewer: Jason, did you handle the whole application process on your own? Were there any difficulties that stuck with you?

🙋🏻‍♂️ Jason: I’d call it half DIY. I had someone help edit my essays, and I talked about the application with older students and alumni in the US. MBA applications are a bit harder than other master’s programs: the essay questions, the competitiveness, and the interviews are all a notch more difficult.

For Columbia’s Deferred MBA, though, I drew on what I’d learned applying to other schools and did it completely on my own. As for difficulties, there were a few. I mentioned the essays are hard, and what I’d like to share there is that they ask some rather odd questions.

🎤 Interviewer: What kind of odd questions?

🙋🏻‍♂️ Jason: They ask who you admire most, which has nothing directly to do with the degree. A lot of the questions are about understanding you as a person: your soft skills, and what you think when you reflect on yourself. They also asked things like what matters most to you. Pretty philosophical questions.

You can’t produce a perfect answer to questions like that in a short time. I had to quickly get clear on my career goals, my passions, my background and my strengths, and that takes a lot of self-reflection. That was one of the biggest challenges.

Another one was time management. Grad school applications take a lot of time and have many steps: tests, essays, and then interviews. I was still a student, writing my senior thesis, and at the same time interning at a venture capital firm in Shanghai. So time management matters a lot when you apply to grad school, and you really need the passion to keep going.

The last one was anxiety. After putting in all that time, you worry about whether you’ll get in, and whether not getting in means you’ve failed.

A lot of people say they’re anxious before they get an offer, then once they have offers they have to choose, and they’re still anxious. The anxiety never stops. For me, it eased the more research I did. I was pretty obsessed back then: every video on my YouTube channel was about MBAs, including interviews, alumni, and people sharing what MBA life is like. I gave it everything I had, and after that the anxiety kept shrinking. I figured if I didn’t get in, so be it.

🎤 Interviewer: I feel like that’s exactly why the essays ask those big questions. They want you to think hard about whether you really want to invest the time and money, both in the application and in the degree itself.

🙋🏻‍♂️ Jason: Yes, exactly. MBA tuition is especially expensive, and it takes two years, so there’s the time cost too.

Did Jason have a clear career plan when he applied for the Deferred MBA?

🎤 Interviewer: I’m curious whether you applied for an MBA because you already knew you wanted to work in the US software industry, and saw the degree as a big plus, or even close to a requirement?

🙋🏻‍♂️ Jason: To be honest, no. I was still a senior and had never actually worked in tech, so I didn’t really know what it was like inside or whether it was something I’d love. The real reason I applied was the flexibility. I could roughly imagine how an MBA might help my career, so I just kept writing, and since it was a Deferred MBA, if I decided not to go later, I wouldn’t lose anything. I didn’t have many ideas back then, and I wasn’t especially sure about my career either.

🎤 Interviewer: But with that “nothing to lose either way” attitude, wasn’t it easier to want to give up during the application? It’s not like you absolutely needed this option or this ticket.

🙋🏻‍♂️ Jason: True, but the flexibility is exactly why I wanted to get in so badly. Only after being admitted would I have options either way, so flexibility was the biggest motivation. I could also picture that applying for an MBA after four or five years of work would be harder. If I were working full time, I’d have to go back and take the tests again. I wanted to get the tests done while I was at my sharpest.

Why did Jason start his study-abroad account?

🎤 Interviewer: After the whole application was over, why did you decide to start the Jason Instagram account?

🙋🏻‍♂️ Jason: I actually decided while I was applying that if I got in, I’d definitely start creating content, though I hadn’t worked out how. When I was researching this program, I found very little information about it in Chinese, and I thought it would suit a lot of people’s situations, so I figured I could write articles and share more about it.

After I started the account, I didn’t write many Deferred MBA articles, maybe one or two. What I ended up sharing more was the self-reflection process. Those few months applying for the Deferred MBA might have been the biggest turning point of my college years. From freshman to junior year I just kept busy without much direction: whatever there was to do, I did. While applying for the Deferred MBA, I realized I could start by reflecting on myself to understand my strengths, my background and what I enjoy doing, and then gradually plan my future career. That’s the part I most wanted to share on my channels.

How does Jason help applicants find what makes them stand out?

🎤 Interviewer: I want to go back to something I wanted to ask earlier, about Elena’s experience. Jason, when you help applicants, how do you dig up the hidden gems in their life experience?

🙋🏻‍♂️ Jason: I usually ask them to write a first version of their resume themselves. That lets me quickly understand their background, internships, coursework and so on. Then I gradually guide them to talk with me about their current career plans and why they want to study abroad.

During those conversations, what I want to understand most is the “why.” Why are they passionate about this field, why do they want to study abroad, how do they think studying abroad will help them, and even why the school should admit them. Asking those “why” questions brings out what the applicants themselves think and what their goals are right now, and that makes the essays easier to write.

It really is a process of constant reflection. If you’ve done the self-reflection well, you’ll have a lot more to say in your essays and school interviews. Whether you’re looking at it from the school’s side or preparing your own application, you first need to work out why you want to study abroad. Once you have, more opportunities open up.

What problems did Elena, one of Jason’s clients, run into when applying, and how did she solve them?

🎤 Interviewer: I’d also like to ask Elena. You mentioned Jason gave you some good advice during your application. Could you tell us more about the problems you ran into and how you solved them with his help?

🙋🏻‍♀️ Elena: The first reason I lacked confidence in my background was my scores, which were very average. My language test scores like the TOEFL, and my GRE, the reasoning test grad schools look at, were objectively not what people would call competitive.

I also had no full-time work experience. I read a lot online back then, and everyone said that applicants to HR graduate programs basically all have full-time experience. I thought, all I have is my time as a headhunter, so maybe I can’t compete. On top of that, I was switching fields completely between undergrad and grad school. I studied public administration in college and chose HR for my master’s.

Public administration is mostly geared toward Taiwan’s civil service exams, and moving into a business field with some social science mixed in is a big jump, so I had very little confidence in my background. After talking with Jason, I found that my headhunting experience was worth more than I thought and was quite directly connected to the programs I was applying to. I also put real care into my documents, going back and forth with Jason on edits, and connected my other past experiences more deeply to the direction of each program.

I was really happy with the final documents. I felt every experience I had was presented well, and then I submitted them. In the end I applied to eight schools and got offers from seven, far more than I expected.

🎤 Interviewer: When I chat with Elena day to day, she seems very willing to talk about her strengths, so I’m actually pretty surprised you weren’t confident about your past. You seem good at finding where your advantages are.

🙋🏻‍♀️ Elena: I think that’s my personality. I like to look on the bright side, and I’ve also been a headhunter for almost a year. Headhunting requires you to package what you communicate: your word choice and the way you describe things have to be positive. So when I talk with people I probably come across as upbeat, cheerful and optimistic, but a small part of me still knows I’m not that confident.

Jason’s two startups: one in school & one now

🎤 Interviewer: As we learned more, we found that before Jason started creating study-abroad content, he had already started a new-media talent management business. After that he founded OfferLand, a one-stop platform built for students going abroad and new graduates. Could you tell us about your two startups?

🙋🏻‍♂️ Jason: The first one, the new-media management company, came about because I was studying in mainland China. YouTube was blocked there, yet on Bilibili and other Chinese video platforms I could find videos from YouTube. I wondered whether people were quietly reposting them without permission, and I thought maybe I could act as an official agent: reach out to these YouTubers and offer to represent them and license their videos to the Chinese market. The idea took root, and suddenly I was on the startup path.

We then signed fairly long-term exclusive contracts with video platforms like iQIYI and Bilibili. That was my first startup as a student. The second, OfferLand, came from pain points I ran into while running my content channels. I saw so many students struggling with information gaps, whether in applying abroad or job hunting. I thought I could build a product that gathers the experiences of students who went before, so younger students could use it as a reference for studying abroad and for their careers.

So I founded OfferLand and found two co-founders to build it with me. It has features like an admission-chances lookup and a forum where people share their experiences. In both teams I was the founder, the one who came up with the idea, and I mainly handled business development and product management. Both projects got into startup accelerators, and I learned a lot from both, in soft skills as well as hard skills.

Starting a business as a student vs. after entering the workforce: how did it feel different?

🎤 Interviewer: The two happened at different times: one while you were studying in China, the other a bit later. Did that gap change your mindset in any way?

🙋🏻‍♂️ Jason: Good question. When I was going over the interview outline, I spent some time thinking about what the difference actually was. The first startup was while I was in school, so my opportunity cost was basically zero. All I had to spend was time. I didn’t need to fear failure, and I could just try anything. If it failed, it failed.

I was also less mature then. I’d get an idea and just go for it, without really thinking through a complete business model or how to build something that could scale. As a result we couldn’t quickly, or fully, grow all the creators we had secured. The only ones we still manage today are one or two large creators who have long-term contracts with the platforms.

Still, as a student founder I got to reach out proactively in a huge market, and as a student startup we managed to close deals with these big YouTubers. I think that experience is pretty rare.

The second startup came after I’d graduated. Doing it on the side while holding a full-time job, I clearly felt time pressure. And it wasn’t only my own time: my teammates were under pressure too, because each of them had to put in their own effort or money to build a product that helps international students, and then improve it based on their feedback.

Under that pressure I could build a lot of soft skills faster, and I grew much more in areas like team management, running a product and iterating on it. So of the two, the second one made me grow faster.

How did the first startup help the second, and how did both shape Jason’s career and study-abroad plans?

🎤 Interviewer: In the second startup, was there anything you felt you didn’t do well the first time and were determined to get right?

🙋🏻‍♂️ Jason: The biggest growth across the two was in soft skills. During the first one I was a student, so the only things I had to do were study and run the startup. I wanted to push forward fast and do everything well, so I didn’t pay much attention to managing the team or communicating with people. Everyone was probably under a lot of pressure, and we didn’t take much time to reflect on whether we were doing things well.

In the second startup I care a lot about this. I want it to help not only me but also my teammates, both in their careers and in growing their professional skills, and I want us to do it in a happier environment. I also want it to keep going for a long time.

🎤 Interviewer: Have either of these startups affected your later career or study-abroad plans?

🙋🏻‍♂️ Jason: I have a fair bit to say here, because I’ve been interviewing recently. The two startups count both for and against me. Let me start with the downside. When there’s startup experience on your resume, especially a startup you run while holding a full-time job, employers may wonder whether you can focus on the job, or whether you’re someone who likes to keep trying different things. So you have to convince them.

🎤 Interviewer 1: I had no idea that could count against you.

🎤 Interviewer 2: We have too much freedom here. It actually can, yeah, it might.

🙋🏻‍♂️ Jason: So in interviews I worked really hard to prove to them that I take my full-time job seriously.

🎤 Interviewer: Then why not just keep your startup to yourself?

🙋🏻‍♂️ Jason: Good question, haha. Because I think the upside outweighs the downside.

🎤 Interviewer: So what’s the upside?

🙋🏻‍♂️ Jason: First, I have more stories to tell. Say they ask about soft skills, or the hardest project you’ve worked on. I might not have a great example from my full-time job, but I can share one from my startups. Second, you can prove more. I was doing two things in the same period. If I can manage my main job and a startup project at the same time, they may conclude that I built up a lot of transferable skills and soft skills in that time, and that I grow quickly.

Why didn’t Jason go full time on his startup? What is his current job, and how does it help his career?

🎤 Interviewer: I see. Have you ever considered working on a startup full time? If not, and if you don’t mind me asking, what’s your current job, and why did you feel you still needed a full-time job like that?

🙋🏻‍♂️ Jason: I’ve never considered going full time on a startup. Right now I can still handle my full-time job and run a startup in my spare time, and doing both keeps the cost and risk much lower. It also looks more impressive, like you’re someone who’s good at planning your time and resources. Another reason I haven’t quit is that my job is pretty interesting. I’m a consultant at an accounting firm, and consulting happens to build the things I want to learn, like being client facing: how to talk with clients, and how, as an introvert, to find an introvert’s way of securing their satisfaction. I’ve learned a lot as a consultant, and it helped a lot in the interviews I just mentioned.

🎤 Interviewer: What kind of consulting?

🙋🏻‍♂️ Jason: I’m in the risk advisory department. We help clients improve their information security and internal policies, and help them with audits and with compliance.

🎤 Interviewer: Besides wanting a full-time job, what made you choose this specific job, consulting in risk management?

🙋🏻‍♂️ Jason: Two things. The first is the scope of our team’s projects. Our team leans toward tech, in the cloud computing domain, so as a business student I could join right after graduation and quickly get exposure to the tech industry and learn a lot. That ties into my later career goals. The second is soft skills. As a consultant you build soft skills much faster. Those two reasons are why I joined the firm without hesitation.

What are Jason’s and Elena’s mid-term career goals?

🎤 Interviewer: Do either of you have mid-term career goals you’re thinking about or have already planned?

🙋🏻‍♂️ Jason: I’ll go first. I want to share the idea of a pivot. In MBA applications there are three common pivots that people hope an MBA will help them make. The first is a change of industry. The second is a change of function and day-to-day work. The third is a change of location.

This relates to my mid-term goal because having that goal is what led me to take my current consulting role. My mid-term goal is to become an account manager in tech, and what I’m doing in the short term matches it well: I’m a consultant now, and my team leans toward tech, so I can get to that goal more easily. And I’ve now received an account manager offer from LinkedIn.

I felt this mid-term goal let me make good use of my consulting experience after graduation, along with the business development experience from my startups. In interviews I could use those stories to convince them that even though my industry, function and even location would all change, I could make the transition well.

🎤 Interviewer: True, it’s a bit like getting an entry ticket. You may not get all the way there in one step, but once you’ve made one key switch, the later steps get relatively easier. One last, harder question: have you thought about the role or function you ultimately want to reach, and why? Something like your end goal.

🙋🏻‍♂️ Jason: My long-term goal right now is probably to be a PM in tech. Through my startups, especially the second one, OfferLand, I found I could build a product from zero to one that helps people, and that gave me a huge sense of achievement. With that long-term goal, I decided recently to move into tech as quickly as I can, since going from account manager to PM later might be a bit easier.

Has work experience changed the plan to study abroad?

🎤 Interviewer: During your work or internships, did anything make you rethink your plans to study abroad?

🙋🏻‍♂️ Jason: Honestly, I’m not completely set on enrolling in the MBA right now, because it could cost six or seven million and take two years. My hesitation is that if I can reach my career or life goals without an MBA, then I no longer have the need that made me apply. Of course I understand the benefits it might bring, and a lot of people say it’s a life-changing experience, that your life feels different after an MBA.

But I’m still thinking about it, and I hope to have new thoughts to share in a year or two.

🎤 Interviewer: So that flexibility is still there for you?

🙋🏻‍♂️ Jason: Yes, exactly.

An observation: goal-oriented students are more likely to succeed

🎤 Interviewer: We’ve spent some time talking with Elena and Jason about work. To finish, let’s come back to studying abroad, since both of you may soon be heading off, and dig into the thinking behind your choices. Jason, you started the account after you knew you’d been admitted to the Deferred MBA, and through it you’ve met many people who want to study abroad. Did you pick up any different perspectives from them, maybe even ones that affected your own path toward studying abroad?

🙋🏻‍♂️ Jason: Interviewing and talking with so many international students, I found that everyone’s reason for going abroad is different. Some go abroad to study and then come back to take over the family business. Others just want to study abroad, become more competitive, and return to the job market in Taiwan. The motivations vary hugely. But whatever their reason, I noticed that the people who could clearly explain their plan, or why they wanted to study abroad, tended to do better later, both in their job search and in their studies. I think it comes down to being goal-oriented. If they’re really clear about their goals, they’re more likely to put in more time looking for jobs or studying while they’re abroad.

So perhaps the core observation is this: everyone studies abroad for different reasons, and you don’t need to question yourself about why your reason differs from someone else’s. As long as your reason is strong enough and you’ve thought it through yourself, your choice about studying abroad, and the effect it has on you later, will probably be clearer, and people like that are more likely to succeed.

Closing thoughts

🎤 Interviewer: I found today’s episode really interesting. It was an unusual pairing: Elena, our former intern, and Jason. I’ve followed Jason’s study-abroad account myself for a long time. I probably followed it because somewhere in my mind there’s the idea of studying abroad. Not quite a dream, but something I might do one day. Speaking for myself, though, I don’t think I’ve found a core reason or a strong enough drive to actually go.

Where I am now, I think studying abroad would help me most with job hunting. But there’s one idea Jason mentioned that I find interesting and worth thinking about: if the career you want can be reached without studying abroad, do you still need to make that investment?

Several earlier guests on Tech Career said clearly that they didn’t want to put their resources, whether time or money, into studying abroad. They believed that even on a different route, they could reach the same career achievements and goals.

With this episode we wanted to share different ideas and different ways of weighing the decision. Everyone cares about different things and has different resources. No single choice is always the best, but there may be one that suits you best.