So I’m planning on studying at SNU (Seoul National University / 서울대학교) next year. It doesn’t help when I read articles like this (thanks Rob). I’m not worried about the language barrier as I’ve been studying Korean for a long time, but the reputation of SNU’s attitude towards foreign students seems to be less than satisfactory. The president of the foreign student club at SNU even wrote about how he had such a hard time because the school wouldn’t listen to him. This doesn’t change the fact that I still want to go there, but I’m noting more things to be ready for. I guess I need to be ready to do everything on my own without any help from the school.
SNU, if you read this, I’m coming to your school and I’m going to write about my experiences here and on other forums where people ask how your school treats its foreign students. I truly hope that I can come back and praise the school and say that I had a great experience, but my confidence in the realization of that statement is … lacking. Please do us both a favor and try to make my and every other foreign student’s life less of a living hell.
UPDATE: Here’s what some current students are saying in response to the article:
Person X
Mate, you are at one of the so called, “best uni’s in Korea”. My teacher doesn’t even prepare classes, she’s been teaching 10 years and can’t even do the basic stuff. heheheh.
Person Y
I did the biggest mistake in my life to choose Korea and specially SNU…after more than 1 year, i see everything is disappointing but what can i do? Korea is not the place i imagined and classes and etc are incredibly awful here.They just pretend they are the best but SNU is just a name. Classes are waste of time, teaching style is extremely bad and…let me stop over here. You know it better.
Person Z (President of the official foreign student club)
Undeniable realities. This is your story and i have heard things like this from more than 100 people .So sorry Soo sorry~:(
Matt,
Have you considered changing your school to study at – and letting them know why? You may your sights set on something laudable, but telling the school you’ve changed your plans because of these stories would seem to have more effect.
Gomushin Girl, over at my site, actually recommended, when a guy asked about doing Korean studies in Korea, to spend a year here studying Korean language, and then apply for the Korean Studies program at a North American university — though it’s not IN Korea, the universities in North America have better reputations and more rigorous programs. Focus on universities near the Pacific Rim — USC, UCLA, UBC Vancouver, etc., and you’ll find most of them have Korean studies programs, and some of them (UBC, UCLA, for two) are ranked higher than SNU on the world uni rankings.
@Chris in South Korea
I have thought about it, but to tell you the truth I don’t think they would bat an eye (I doubt they would read this post also, but I did list my blog on my application so who knows). Also, while there are many horror stories I think you hear more of them since the students who had a good time probably didn’t post very much about it. Many of the complaints I’ve seen is because of the lack of English materials, but that’s not really an issue with me. I have a personal goal to take whatever situation I find myself in and make the best of it.
@Roboseyo
I’ll actually be doing Computer Engineering. I would probably go to UBC or something if I wanted to do Korean Studies. I absolutely loved living in Vancouver and would go back there in a heartbeat. I think Hawaii has a really good program (I really like their books at least).
I’m really confused b/c some foreigners (maybe some are not & just pretending) say that SNU sucks, but my dad & uncles who went to SNU say that it’s a very good school & they’re not the ones who would lie or exaggerate in anyway…
My mom who once participated in a SNU internship program that SNU had a very great system and said SNU was underrated.
Again, these people are very honest & well-educated. My parents received awards from the Korean IRS for paying all of their taxes very honestly.
@Chunbum Park
It’s always good to hear things like that. I hope I can say the same thing as your dad and uncles. But, they weren’t foreigners right?
Just wrote something to you on Twitter. Anyway, I read an article in the school paper this past week about problems that international students have adjusting/fitting in/being able to control their lives at SNU. Examples included little/no English translation of important websites, a lack of manpower to deal with common administrative problems experienced by foreigners, massive (perhaps total) budget cuts to the “SNU Buddy” club which pairs foreigners with Koreans, and an absence of religious facilities for Muslims.
Anyway, turning to personal experience, while I have had many frustrations – particularly at the beginning of the semester – my experience has been extremely good overall. Really, at SNU – like all other colleges – your satisfaction or “what you get” is largely dependent on the effort you put in and your attitude. And it seems like you will be on the “overachiever” end of each of these attributes. That, combined with knowledge of Korean, should smooth your transition greatly.
Well, like I said on Twitter email me with any specific questions. Currently I’m taking 3 classes in Korean (한국어 강의) and 2 영어 강의 in the business and economics departments. I’m also in a club (centered on value investing) here. Well, email me with any questions you have; I can definitely answer questions on student life here, administrative issues, registering for classes, etc.
@Sean Brown
Thanks for the insight Sean, I’m glad to hear that you are having a good time. Yeah, I’m the same way. I believe that I can take whatever situation I’m in and make the best out of it, despite any external hardships.
Thanks for offering to answer my questions, I’ll probably send you a message with a couple of questions.
Roboseyo,
You cannot learn the Korean language in one year, or even two years, and it does not make any sense at all to do Korean Studies outside Korea when you can study inside Korea. Korean society is the best classroom in the world for Korean Studies.
I think Korean college professors are generally selfish and lazy, and that is not going to change anytime soon because the professors are essentially administering themselves, which means they will probably be doing all they can to keep their workloads and standards to an absolute minimum.
I have not worked at Seoul National University (SNU), but, in terms of faculty and culture, I doubt that it is much different from the Korean universities at which I have worked. I think the main thing that makes SNU, Yonsei, and Koryo special are their students, which are Korea’s brightest. Even if the professors do not put much effort into their lectures, you can still pick their brains before and after class and mingle and debate with the SNU students.
However, I would not come to Korea to study something that is unrelated to Korean Studies because, from my experience teaching English in Korea, the programs in Korean universities are generally not very challenging, and the classroom dynamics are as lackluster as a funeral parlor.
A Korean friend and I got our MBAs from West Texas A&M, which is not one of America’s top universities, yet my Korean friend came back to Korea and got a job with General Electric, which also hired a lot of Seoul National MBAs. My friend told me he was surprised to discover that the Seoul National MBAs knew only basic statistics and were regularly trying to use their handful of statistical models in situations in which their simple models would not work. He said he tried to explain the need to match the model to the problem, but his colleagues seemed unwilling to learn or even listen. In their eyes, my friend’s MBA was from some backwoods university in Texas while theirs was from Korea’s top university. However, they did not know that West Texas A&M (formally West Texas State University) had top-notch professors in Accounting and Finance and that our Statistics professor also worked at PANTEX, a nuclear weapons assembly/disassemby plant just outside the city. Also, T. Boone Pickens was on the Board of Regents at our school for a short-time and even has the business school named after him.
Anyway, my friend told me that soon after going to work for GE, he discovered that it was wasting millions of dollars on an inefficent shipping system. Also, my friend was an expert at finding accounting discrepancies and was too principled to be a part of any schemes or shady dealings in the office. He was not well liked among his bosses and colleagues in the Seoul office, the regional president in Singapore seemed to love him. I think my friend told me he was asked to report directly to the regional president in Singapore to avoid office politics and possible cover-ups.
With all of that said, I wish I had the time to study the Korean Language at Seoul National. There is probably no better place in the world.
I can’t give you any advice or tell you my own experience because I’m Korean…
While more foreigners live in South Korea today than ever, it’s far from the best countries to live in for foreigners. Their support system for foreigners or international students still needs more work and effort. It’s far from that of the U.S. I know that for sure.
Are you going there to study just Korean or any other fields? If it is solely Korean, Korea is, of course, the best place to go to. If it is other fields, I should say it might not the best place for you to go to.
I must tell you that you might get disappointed when you go to South Korea. But, as someone said above, it largely depends on your attitude and effort and who you meet there. (I think it applies to anyone who plans to go to a different country to study.) Korean people are very willing to help foreigners (Of course, there are some who aren’t). They might get surprised at how good your Korean is and praise your Korean, which doesn’t happen in the U.S. Maybe, making a lot of Korean friends might help you deal with some problems you might face there. Ask them for help. I think that’s the best alternative for now….
Just speaking English and waiting for help from others wouldn’t be a good way to live and survive there! Of course, I know you won’t be that kind of person as I can see your passion for learning Korean on this website and YouTube. I don’t know how the foreign student club at SNU is dealing with the problem, but I think they need to ask for help and support from other Korean student organizations if they truly want to be heard. That’s a sad reality…
Hahahahah that’s funny. I studied at 2 Korean universities. I’m gonna tell you right now that the international student experience at SNU is no different from that of any other university. At KNU there were only 3 people in the international student office who could speak English, and 1 of them wasn’t even assigned to help us directly. That left 2, but one was in charge of the Chinese students. That left 1, but luckily for me I was in a special group of 7 students who had a schedule already fleshed out by our professors in Hawaii.
At SCH the workers in the international office are all totally incompetent. Of the 3 that deal with English Village, 1 is stubborn, 1 was never informed of his duties, and the 3rd was transferred from the position where she apparently got things done.
Korean language classes are absurdly slow if you’re not in an intensive course. Do not depend on them. But since your level is way above 95% of all non-intensive students that will be in the program with you you might not have an appropriate class available. I had to attend the intensive courses part-time in my second semester at SCH.
Intensive courses are generally taught better than non-intensive courses. I haven’t figured out why yet. And yeah it’s true that Korean education is lacking. You’ll see most students taking 21-24 credits and drinking every night except for mid-terms and finals.
Like others have said your experience will be largely based on your attitude. You’ll have an amazing time if you go in with an open mind and take initiative in meeting people. And to make the buddy program more enjoyable initially, either pretend (for an hour or so) you don’t know anything about Korea or establish from the beginning with your buddy that you know the essentials and then some. I prefer the former because it’s funnier.
Since you know Korean you’ll have far fewer problems than the average international student. But when there are problems facing you guys as a group I suggest joining forces with them because in Korea factions WORK.
tl;dr don’t worry about a thing. You’ve got an advantage over most other students.
Matt, you might want to visit askakorean.blogspot.com.
It’s a pretty great site. Ask him about whether or not Korean colleges really suck.
“So, basically I am supposed to be a better student than someone who was admitted to Korea U, KAIST, Yonsei, etc.,”
HAHAHA no. Sorry. Few students in the world are better than them. A college’s world ranking has very little to do with the students’ intellectual abilities.
I wouldn’t actually go to Ask A Korean about this kind of thing ~ he’s been based in America too long to be very familiar with on-the-ground conditions here.
Gerry, Korea is the place to be if you’re involved in field work or research on Korea. Students of Korean studies should of course come here to gain important, direct, and first-hand knowledge of the field and language. But if you think getting your *degree* in Korean Studies is best done in Korea, you are off your rocker. A degree from any of the major American or Canadian Korean Studies programs will do much, much more for you in terms of academic rigour, theoretical understandings, and eventual degree portability than one from Korea. That’s one reason why so many *Korean* students are pursuing their degrees in the field in other countries. Even Korean professors at Korean universities push their most promising students to study overseas. It’s for a reason.
And as for learning Korean in a year? Certainly not possible for everybody. But definitely possible for some, particularly if they are, as I suggested at Roboseyo’s site, enrolled in a full-time intensive Korean course. Most universities here will admit foreign students for coursework in Korean after (according to most 어학당 systems) level 4/one year, and usually students who complete the full course from level one to six do so in less than two years.
In essence, I stand by my advice on Roboseyo’s page. If you’re aiming to enter Korean studies as a serious academic and gain an advanced degree, learn as much Korean as you can. Enroll in a language course, both to gain in-country experience and to boost your language skills, then enter a program in the US, Canada, or Europe. Do fieldwork here in Korea, but your coursework elsewhere.
@Gomushin Girl
Most students who finish off even the 6th level of language courses at a Korean university aren’t very good at anything but listening. I’m kind of bragging here, but I am one of those uncommon people who think Korean is a kind of easy language. 2 years into my studies (more than half of that was classes without supplemental studying) and my only skill that is LOWER than 3rd- or 4th-year students is listening, but that’s because they have been listening longer, of course. The intensive language courses are, in my opinion, a way to cram in a practical amount of vocabulary and a mountain of grammar in preparation for the intensive studying that goes with understanding course lectures.
Of course, this all depends on your definition of “learning Korean.”
But you’re absolutely right about Korean education.
I think you’re conflating a few things here . . . one is university level classes in Korean language, in our home countries (which is what I assume you mean by 2 years into your studies, and 3rd and 4th year students) and the intensive coursework of 어학당 here in Korea. I found my Korean increased exponentially faster in the 어학당 I attended than in my two years of language courses as a grad student (where I started at the intermediate level thanks to my self-directed study while I was living here as a Fulbright grantee). Some of it was methodology, but the support provided by being in an immersive course where I spoke, wrote, read, and heard only Korean was essential to gaining higher level skills. And I would say that of all the students who graduated with me, fully half are enrolled and succeeding in undergraduate and graduate studies. One is starting her advanced degree in Korean Language Education ~ in the coursework designed for Korean students. Anybody who qualifies for grad school to teach a language not their native one has reached a pretty high degree of fluency, don’t you think?
Of course, if all you do is go to the Yonsei summer program and goof off with your friends, of course your skills won’t improve. And not all programs are created equal – some, like Sogang, are well known for producing people with excellent speaking skills. Some, like Yonsei, are much better known for their grammar instruction. Some courses go slower than others (경희대, 이대) so it’s important to find one that’s the right fit. That said, I think they’re still the most effective way to learn Korean in a short amount of time.
Actually I’m comparing myself to the 어학당 students of 순천향 and 경북. I completely agree with you that the intensive courses are much better and faster than courses in America and the regular courses given to most western international students in Korean universities. I didn’t know that the different universities had their own emphasis. In that case 경희 needs to pick it up a notch because their textbook is severely disappointing.
My class background is 3 months of 20 hrs/wk in Hawaii, 1 sem of 9 hrs/wk at 경북, and 2 sem of 6 hrs/wk at 순천향. The only self study I did was in that last semester where I also crammed in the KLEAR series 5-8 on top of doing my actual homework.
Either way, the people I’ve talked to who are in 4th and 5th level 어학당 classes are often poor at output (I haven’t met 6th level students). I guess we’ve had different experiences.
I think some of it may have been the 어학당 you attended. 서울대, 연세, and 서강대 probably have the best known and most rigorous programs (for westerners). I ended up at 고대 where the classes were geared towards the Chinese and Japanese students who dominated the program (80% Chinese, 15% Japanese total enrollment, with Japanese picking up a greater percentage at the top levels and Chinese filling in more in the 조 and 중급) and thus went at a very swift pace. Actually, that’s one reason why the fellowship I was on changed their system and now sends everyone to 서강대 instead ofletting students choose ~ there were too many complaints of inequalities between the programs. I started at level 3 at 고대 despite being demonstrably better than another fellow who was placed in level 4 at 경희대. Students at some schools worked harder for lower grades. In the end they decided to just move everyone to the same school so we could stop moaning about different schedules and situations and levels of study. Now students complain that they can’t choose schools that address their individual language learning needs ^^V
I have an odd affection for 경희’s books . . . while they’re silly and not terribly demanding, I’ve had a lot of success using them when tutoring students who are just learning for fun. 고대’s books for the 어학당 are incredibly boring, and I remember hating them with a passion. For westerners undertaking self-study, I think the Integrated Korean series is the best bet, since it provides fairly clear grammar explanations. Some of the vocab is a little outdated though
Ah, I didn’t know some of the programs were designed for westerners. I figured the 어학당 classes were all dominated by Chinese, with some schools also having some Japanese and Mongolians. I heard 경희대 does have a fair share of westerners though, but I heard most of them are European or Russian.
My main gripe about 경희’s books is the lack of organization. It might be a fantastic book underneath its mess of a layout but users have to spend too much time flipping around looking for new words and readings and trudging through what I think are rather dull and barebones essays on what the chapter’s topic is. I’m glad I’m done using that book.
Most language schools now *do* seem to be dominated by Chinese and Japanese students, followed by Eastern Europeans and Southeast Asians. And while I wish a course had been designed with our needs in mind . . .eh, no such luck outside western countries. There’s an assumption even there though that the people who want to learn Korean are heritage learners, which I think feeds into why Korean teaching is so undeveloped compared to, say, Japanese (I took Japanese before I took Korean, and the differences in how well things were structured was astounding. Plus, there was the underlying assumption that there were a range of reasons one might want to learn the language) Yonsei is probably the best known in America, and does seem to have a large body of western students. 고대 actually had a policy of not assigning westerners to the same class, should there be more than one per level . . .
Yeah, most people in the US ARE heritage learners. In the lower levels that gets saturated by all the middle-aged women who want to learn some basic skills before going shopping in Seoul, but as you get more advanced the heritage learners make up most of the classes.
I’ve studied Japanese as well. I find Japanese to be more structured and organized, but Korean to be easier to work with. Is that similar to your thoughts?
Actually, I think it’s less of a difference in the language itself, and more to do with the way in which it’s taught to us. Frankly, Japanese teaching methodology is much, MUCH better developed in the US. There’s more and better curriculum to chose from, and it is approached much like other languages (Spanish, French, German, etc.) in the high school and college curriculum. Korean, on the other hand, often seems an afterthought of a language that only a few people would be concerned with. In Japanese classes and trips to Japan, nobody asked me why I, as a non-heritage student, would be interested in visiting the country or learning Japanese. They might ask my particular aim (planning on living in Japan, interested in pop culture, academic work) but never from the perspective that my interest was unnatural or unusual. The assumption was that it was a subject as worthy as any other, and should be structured and taught as such.
The same assumptions aren’t yet in operation for Korean language teaching. As a non-heritage learner, my underlying motivation for starting (rather than my aims for using the language) are constantly questioned. The assumption is that only Koreans (ethnic or national) need Korean, and so teaching is structured around teaching heritage learners whose association with the language is thought to be “natural.” Because their relationship to the language is “natural” there’s a feeling that you don’t need as much structure, resulting in substantively less development of teaching methodology. Students who aren’t Korean ethnically are assumed to be outliers.
The assumptions of teaching here in Korea are a little different, but still not structured in such a way to favor western/non-Asian learners. Here, most learners are coming from language backgrounds that include Chinese characters, and this too changes the assumptions about what needs to be taught and how. I used to complain at my 어학당 that vocab wasn’t being properly introduced and emphasized before appearing on tests, and that sometimes the necessary words hadn’t appeared in our previous work at all ~ but that wasn’t a problem for most of the students, because they could more easily retain vocab and guess at what they didn’t know because of the shared sino characters. But in America, hanja aren’t even introduced until the high-intermediate level, if at all . . . on the assumption that they’re too hard for westerners to learn, even though they provide substantive help in vocab aquisition. In my Japanese classes, by contrast, we were taught kanji from the beginning.
I don’t really have much to say since I took a pretty radical learning route from the norm that didn’t involve heritage learners until this semester now that I’m in the Flagship. But I can comment two things.
It’s probably true that there’s an assumption that only ethnic Koreans need Korean, but the other reason we’re asked so often about our reasons for learning the language is because there are so few non-heritage learners learning Korean. Any language that is seldom studied by non-ethnics will be questioned that way. I get it from anyone who finds out I’ve studied some Mongolian. And due to the fast growing popularity of Mandarin, I get questioned as to why I DON’T want to study it.
I completely agree that hanja should be seen more in the curriculum, but there’s two good reasons it’s not: One being that it’s not necessary to learn the language, especially at a low level where most of the words learned are native Korean, and two being that Chinese characters are indeed difficult for westerners to learn. It’s probably due to our cultural conditioning and stereotypes that language learning is difficult and the impatience we have with such a long-term pursuit, but regardless of the reason, it led to countless sources claiming to be an effective, if not one of the best methods for learning Chinese characters. In fact Heisig went as far as publishing a traditional and simplified hanzi pair of books (with upcoming sequels) just a year ago. I’m the only person in my hanja class who thinks 12 characters a week is ridiculously slow. Either I must be a genius or something is going on in everyone else’s head.
That being said, you make good points about the curriculum. If that is indeed the case then it’s kind of ironic that Korean could be taught in much the same way as Japanese with similar results, just because of the similarities in grammar and number of borrowed Chinese words.
I understand the logic in waiting to teach hanja, but I think it’s bogus. First, let’s tackle the “hanja are hard” argument . . . well, so what? Learning languages is hard. Learning Chinese and Japanese is hard, but learners of both languages are expected to master them as part of literacy. In the end, however, hanja aquisition equates to faster and better vocab building. Learning words goes a lot faster when I can reason out that “학(學)” means learning, so “학자, 학교, 수학, 학생, 학문” are probably all related, and probably have to do with learning or study. And if I know “자(者)” often means person, I can put two and two together and make an educated guess about 학자 without having to individually study the word for “scholar” Of course there are exceptions and cases where this doesn’t work, and plenty of homophones (학자/學資 = school fees, for example) but it’s a valuable tool. It’s one reason, too, that the Japanese and Chinese students weren’t phased by the large amounts of vocab we had to aquire at the 어학당: They could already guess because they knew characters.
But I digress . . . they’re not that hard, and students in other languages are required to learn them. Japanese language students are expected to be proficient in romaji, kanji, hiragana, and katakana. That’s four writing systems. You adjust the pace and figure the kanji into the curriculum, but students still are expected to learn it. Korean language students can and should learn the same way.
This gets us to the second argument, that hanja aren’t needed and aren’t in daily use anymore. The only problem is that this is wrong. Of course, you don’t have to know hanja to be conversationally fluent. You DO need them to be literate, however. With the exception of the the 한겨레신문, all the newspapers use some amount of 한자. Heck, if you need to know whether you’re picking up a copy of the 조선일보 vs. the 동아일보 you need to know 한자. If you’re going to read academic articles, particularly on subjects like history, religion, and art, you HAVE to know 한자. By assuming that students won’t need it and delaying it until the later stages of study, you make it harder to aquire and cripple students who are going to need it later in their studies.
Frankly, I think it’s patronizing to be told “Oh, this is hard and you probably won’t use it, so don’t worry about it.” It assumes I’m not serious about my studies, and incapeable of the hard stuff. And, as I said, this kind of thinking does not shape the curriculum in languages like Chinese and Japanese, where there are more students and better curriculum. And while I’m sure that students of obscure languages also have to put up with questions about why they’re studing, it’s still annoying (as I’m sure you know) and carries the assumption that we *shouldn’t* be interested in something outside our own “proper” sphere of ethnicity. Japanese studies, as I’ve pointed out, assume that it is natural for non-Japanese to study the language and culture. I wish Korean studies would pick up some of that nonchalance.
Plus, I just hate having the same conversation eight times a day (sigh . . .)
I never said hanja aren’t in daily use but perhaps I implied it. I see at least a few every day when I’m in Korea SOMEWHERE. And on the note of needing to know them to read works on history, religion, etc, that is at an advanced level. Right now most learners don’t reach that level or don’t put themselves in the situation where they need to know more than say 100 characters. Koreans may learn close to 2000 characters by the time they finish high school but they forget them fast since they’re hardly used. Hanja are an extremely valuable tool in learning Korean and necessary for accessing Korean documents, but it’s that mentality westerners have that Chinese characters are impossible that hinders people and affects the curriculum. Language curriculum in most schools and classes is pretty poor for most languages, and that in itself is a shame. I don’t expect to see hanja in the Korean classrooms for a long time to come.
I hate having the same conversation too. I get it more in Japanese though. Koreans don’t usually ask me about my studies until we’re already having a discussion, but even then only a handful ask. But I’m completely tired of hearing “YOU SPEAK X REALLY WELL.” These days I just ignore it or give a quick “no” and keep talking.
But that’s the problem . . . we wait until much, much too late in the process of teaching students Korean to introduce hanja, crippling them when they suddently need a few hundred or thousand for research, and have to manically work to aquire them. Sure, if we teach it from the beginning many students will end up aquiring a branch of knowledge they’ll not need or use, but they can safely go ahead and forget them then, just as I did when forced to learn stupid 속담 that I never, ever use, and hardly ever hear from Koreans. On the other hand, students going on to study at higher levels are inevitably hurt by not having learned them earlier. Heck, we all have to learn lots of stuff in school that some or even most students will forget/disregard/never use. Add hanja to the pile, so we don’t end up damaging the ability of interested parties to go on to higher levels.
I believe I’ve already spent enough time on the substantial boost hanja gives your ability to learn and retain vocab, but just to confirm it, I spoke yesterday with a Chinese student who had just taken a long test in Korean. She passed, despite being unable to speak Korean at anything more than a very basic level, because she could guess enough vocab due to her knowledge of Chinese characters.
I don’t find that it’s *Westerners* who believe that Chinese characters are too hard, and keep it out of the curriculum. As mentioned before, Western students of Chinese and Japanese are expected, as a matter of course, to learn characters. My Japanese teachers, both native Japanese and white-bread American, all expected us to learn kanji. It is rather the Korean teachers who have set curriculum who have decided it was “too hard” – an attitude I find completely insulting.
By the way, Korean students *do* learn hanja. It’s part of the basic curriculum, and appears as a section on the 수능시험.