Adelia, a fourth-year student in AI Management from Kyrgyzstan, shares her experience at our recent Field Trip to the Asian Leadership Conference in Seoul on May 20th.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the student author and do not necessarily reflect the official views, policies, or positions of the institution

I Felt Like I Had Wings

“I thought I would feel small next to world leaders. Instead, I felt like I had wings

— and the motivation to actually use them.”

It started with an email. When I saw that Woosong University was recruiting students for the Asian Leadership Conference, I immediately looked up the event — and the brochure stopped me. Past speakers included Barack Obama, Narendra Modi, Volodymyr Zelensky, Boris Johnson, and Nobel laureate James A. Robinson. The venue was The Shilla Hotel in Seoul, a five-star landmark I had only ever heard about in Professor Minjoo Leutwiler Lee’s luxury brand management classes. Visiting it had honestly been a quiet dream of mine. I applied immediately.

After getting selected, I prepared on my own — watching recordings of previous ALC sessions and reading up on the speakers. We were also briefed on a strict dress code and professional conversation etiquette, which was when I truly understood the level of the event I was about to attend.

On May 20th, around 80 of us left campus at 7am headed to Seoul. It rained the entire day — relentlessly — but nothing dented our excitement. The moment we walked into The Shilla, everything shifted. People in suits, serious conversations, warm laughter, business card exchanges happening in every corner. We received name tags with QR codes granting access to five tracks. The attention to detail was striking from the start — hotel staff holding umbrellas for every guest passing through open areas, even in the hallways. It was my first time experiencing hospitality at that level, and it set the tone for everything that followed.

My first session featured Mick Mulvaney, former White House Chief of Staff under President Trump. His perspective was candid and surprisingly personal. One moment stood out: he said that while most Americans today choose friends based on political alignment, Trump simply likes who he likes — it comes down to business chemistry, nothing more. He also recalled that Trump genuinely enjoyed playing golf with Japan’s late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, even though Abe was, by Mulvaney’s own account, not very good at it. That kind of detail made the geopolitics feel unexpectedly human.

Between sessions, my Nepali friends and I picked a random table. We only realized afterward that one seat had been reserved for Indonesia’s trade minister. That is the ALC in one small moment: the world’s decision-makers are simply there, right beside you, with no fanfare.

The session on drones and cyber warfare was entirely new territory for me. Before that talk, I associated drones mostly with filming. I learned they are now central to modern conflicts — used in Russia-Ukraine and other theatres to detect missiles and flying weapons from kilometers away, relaying signals to military bases in real time. The discussion of where this technology is heading was both fascinating and sobering.

At noon, the hotel served a full Korean course meal — braised abalone, seared salmon, soy-marinated beef tenderloin, steamed scallops, fresh fruit, all presented together on one beautifully arranged plate. I had expected good food at a five-star hotel, but the quality went beyond anything I had imagined. Everything was incredibly tender and refined, and I remember thinking that even a baby could eat it. Sharing that meal in the same room as ministers and executives from around the world made me feel genuinely included — and quietly more motivated than I had expected.

The talk I will remember longest was by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joel

Mokyr. He spoke with rare clarity about the structural challenges ahead for Korea and argued that AI alone will not solve tomorrow’s problems. After the session, an audience member asked what advice he would give young people. His answer: stay curious, stay creative. Do not assume today’s systems will handle what comes next. Creativity is what makes progress possible — and what makes each of us irreplaceable. Fifty lucky attendees got their books signed by him afterward, including some of our Woosong students. I left that room with something I had not quite had before: a clearer sense of what I want to build.

The spaces between talks were just as memorable. In the hotel hallway, staff served teas, coffee, and desserts on a terrace that we enjoyed between sessions. On the ground floor, luxury fashion and jewelry boutiques lined the corridor — another reminder of where we were. As ALC participants, we each received a gift bag with an eco tote in the conference’s signature burgundy red. And near the exit, The Chosun Daily had set up a photo booth where your picture came out styled like a newspaper front page. My friends and I took ours — it was fun, a little surreal, and the perfect souvenir of the day.

On the bus back to campus that evening, I kept thinking about how much had happened in a single day. The ALC organizers made the conference entirely free for students, which is an extraordinary gesture and one of the things that makes this event so special. I went in hoping to learn something. I came back feeling seen, genuinely motivated, and more excited about the future than I had been in a long time.

Thank you to Professor Muzaffarjon Ahunov and Professor Minjoo Leutwiler Lee for making this opportunity possible. Thank you to my fellow Woosong students who shared this day with me — your energy and curiosity made it even better. And thank you to The Chosun Daily and The Shilla Hotel for hosting an event that reminded a room full of students that the world is worth showing up for.