Penn Abroad Ambassador Alexandra Curtu

Program...

• GRIP: PR and Marketing in Bangkok

Ask me about...

• Working in Finance & Marketing abroad

• Using knowledge from Penn classes in abroad scenarios

• Making friends abroad when there is a language barrier

My experience abroad...

As a Wharton student studying Behavioral Economics I am interested in the fields of consulting, non-profit work, and finance. Through my role as a marketing intern for Cheewid, a cloud software program serving nonprofits in Thailand, I was able to get experience working on many different types of projects that apply to the fields I am interested in and utilized the coursework I completed during my first year at Penn. For example, one of the main projects I’m working on right now in my internship is a calculator for Thai citizens and businesses to see how much they can earn back in tax deductibles from donations to nonprofits/social enterprises. On this project I’m utilizing skills from my legal studies course at Wharton about how to read legal documents and know what information is useful to my specific work. Another project I worked on is assessing Cheewid’s social media performance and coming up with ideas to increase engagement. On this project I used knowledge from one of my marketing classes making sure that Cheewid has a clear and direct value proposition of their goal as a company and how that can be used to create a strong and cohesive social media presence across all platforms. Additionally, in terms of career alignment, my supervisor has broad experience working as a consultant for 4 years and now currently in investment banking so I was able to learn a lot about both industries from interviewing him and asking a lot of questions.

Other highlights...

• Weekly Muay Thai boxing class

• Traveling to Phuket and Chiang Mai 

• Eating the best food ever

• Seeing how queer culture is celebrated in Bangkok

• Discovering local jazz bands and artists in Thailand