For Laurie Utter, the summer of 1997 will be remembered as the summer she spent studying deregulation of the telecommunications industry in the European Union while getting her travel fix.
An MBA student at the College of Business and Administration at CU-Boulder, Utter is participating in the London Seminar in International Finance and Business. The month-long seminar, under the direction of long-time CU business Professor Michael Palmer, focuses on international finance and strategies for European businesses.
The program is in its 16th year and Michael Delaney, director of CUs study abroad office, says its popularity has been steadily increasing. The College of Business has the greatest percentage of students who choose to study abroad due to this and other programs, Delaney said. They seem to recognize early on that they will be doing business in a global market, and this is one way they prepare themselves for that challenge.
The 30 CU-Boulder students in this years program will hear lectures from some of Londons financial, political and governmental leaders and will go on field trips to Lloyds of London, the Central Bank of England, a foreign exchange dealing room and the houses of parliament. The students will live in a dormitory at City University in London.
Students have each started an international research project to finish in London. Utters telecom deregulation project will analyze the marketing demands of European countries that are required to deregulate by the end of 1998.
Her research coincides with her present job at SK Telecom in Boulder, which trains South Korean telecommunication executives as they, too, prepare for deregulation.
SK Telecom is a joint venture of CUs colleges of business and engineering. Groups of 10 to 15 South Korean businesspeople spend three months in Boulder taking courses in English, business and telecommunications.
American case studies, such as the Baby Bells, are used to teach South Koreans what they can anticipate as they face deregulation. For information on this program, contact Dr. Yong-Soon Kang, 417-1996. For information on the London Seminar, contact Utter at 443-4372 or Michael Palmer at 492-4415.