Education in Korea

So today I will be comparing the differences between Yonsei University and the University of Hawaii at Manoa (UHM).

Similar to UHM, students at Yonsei register for classes online. I mentioned in an earlier post that English-taught business classes are especially competitive to register for (only 5 seats reserved for exchange students!!). If you don’t get the classes you want during the registration period, try to email the professor(s) and/or go to the first week of classes. Some people drop classes and many professors will allow more than 5 exchange students, so you can register for them during the next registration period. You may want to carefully read the syllabus and email the professor beforehand, regardless of whether you are able to register or not. I’ve heard that some professors may teach in English, but the homework is done in Korean, or vice versa.

Many classes in the US have multiple “midterms”. For example, I may take 5 courses and each course has 2-4 midterm exams spread throughout the semester. So sometimes I end up having a midterm exam almost every other week. However, in Korea, there is one week set aside specifically for midterms (no classes!). The downside to this is that each exam is worth a huge chunk of your grade. At UHM each exam was typically worth 15-30% of my grade, but here, each of my exams fall between 30-40% of my overall grade. In my opinion, exams are a little more difficult here because each exam covers more information. However, people in other classes have said that their exams were easier because some professors take into consideration the difficulty that native Koreans have with taking an English course.

Instead of regular homework assignments, the rest of my grades are usually determined by participation, papers, or presentations. All of my teachers check attendance and attendance/participation is usually worth around 10%. There are also a lot more group projects and papers here at Yonsei and I think it has something to do with Korea’s collective culture. Professors really want us to work together and will usually try to mix native Korean students and international students into each group. I also noticed that some professors would pick the group leaders rather than letting the group decide. Korea also has a vertical structure hierarchy, so the group leader is usually either the eldest person or the person who has been at Yonsei the longest.

UHM uses an online system called Laulima, in which students can check their grades, send/receive messages, download Powerpoints that professors post, etc. Yonsei has something similar called YSCEC (http://yscec.yonsei.ac.kr/en/). Check this site out before the first day of class because some professors may go over some material that’s posted there.

Most of my teachers studied in America at some point, so their English is understandable. With the exception of a few words, their pronunciation is pretty good. However, most of them have a hard time giving explanations of more difficult concepts. I strongly recommend that you try to read before class so you can understand their examples during the lecture.

I hope this was informative! Just remember that most of what I said was based on my own personal experiences. Each professor is different, so they may not follow the same format. I have friends with professors who still held classes during midterms week and some who decided to have their midterm either the week before or the week after the scheduled midterms week.