Proof You Should Never Abandon Your Dreams, Even those Involving Boy Bands

When Korean broadcaster Young-Eun Yang MBA ’10 applied to graduate schools, there was no doubt she wanted to be in Boston. It is, after all, the hometown of New Kids on the Block, the Boston-based pop group that sold 80 million albums worldwide in the 1980s and 90s and that Yang idolized as a child. She always hoped to visit Boston one day, and early on, she even set her mind to perfecting her English—by singing along to NKOTB videos, watching Sesame Street, and reading American music magazines—just in case she ever met any of the band members.

Sounds like an adorable childhood fantasy, right?

During Yang's undergraduate career at Seoul National University in 1999, Joey McIntyre, her favorite of the New Kids, visited town on a solo tour and Yang, with her strong English skills, volunteered to act as an interpreter and actually met her idol. "I was really proud and happy to see my dream come true,” she remembered. Now studying at Sloan, she's excited to be living in the city that inspired her as a girl and working on a degree that will complement her other childhood dream come true—that of working as an anchorwoman.

Read a profile of Yang (pdf) published in the News @ MIT Sloan newsletter, and learn how she became a broadcaster in Korea, how she fared with only 20 minutes to prepare for an interview with famed Spanish tenor José Carreras, and what her future plans are.