Exchange Report - Spring 2015
Yonsei University
Seoul, South Korea
79381W
Source: http://www.uq.edu.au/uqabroad/yonsei-university
Yonsei University
50 Yonsei-ro
Sepdaemun-gu
Seoul
SOUTH KOREA
Preparing for the exchange
Having lived in the United States and Australia, Asia felt like a good destination
for my exchange year. The final choice was between Hong Kong, Japan and South
Korea. Hong Kong did not offer any Master level exchange and Japan being very
expensive I decided to with South Korea. I had also met many Koreans during my
earlier travels, who had been really nice and fun people, which also mattered in
the choice. All of the three universities that Aalto has an exchange deal with are
located in the capital, Seoul. All three SKY-universities (Seoul National
University, Korea University and Yonsei University) are top universities in Korea,
and people are proud to be alumni or current students of each one of them.
The choice between these three universities was in the end fairly easy. I heard
from several sources that Yonsei University has a really vibe and there is a lot
going on around the university. This was a very important factor in my decision,
since I knew that all three universities are very respected in academics. I also
saw the exchange semester of 50% of studying and 50% getting to know the
country, culture and meeting new people.
After being selected to Yonsei University in the internal selection of Aalto I had to
still do an online application on Yonsei University’s web site. This required some
basic information such as name, home university, major etc. The form was very
clear and with instructions there was nothing difficult in filling the form. After
completing the form it and sending it electronically Yonsei also required a
printed version of the form, which had to be mailed to them in advance. I highly
recommend doing this as early as possible, since my application letter got lost
somewhere in the Yonsei office and therefore I got my application letter very
late. I was not able to apply for my VISA before getting the letter, and in the end I
got the VISA the same day as my flight left. So send the papers rather early than
late!
The VISA application is a bit annoying. First you need to visit the website
http://fin.mofa.go.kr/english/eu/fin/main/index.jsp and get the VISA
application form, which is found on the website as a PDF file. All of the following
documents need to be taken to the South Korean embassy in Helsinki, and the
application process takes at least five working days:
-
Valid Passport
Visa application form (the student VISA code is D-2)
Processing fee (around 60 euros)
A recommendation letter from Aalto University (I got this from the
International Office)
An enrolment letter from Aalto (got this from the main building in Töölö)
The original acceptance letter (sent by Yonsei University)
Another form, which name I can’t remember (comes with the acceptance
letter)
Most recent certificate of school record (official transcripts from Aalto)
-
Financial verification (a statement in English from your bank which
shows that you have enough money, best to check the limit form the
Embassy)
A passport photo (colour photo 3,5 X 4,5 cm)
After getting the VISA you have all the required paperwork to enter the country.
Getting to Yonsei University from Incheon International Airport is pretty easy
with a train. I took the airport line to Hongik University station and from there I
switched to line 2 towards Sinchon station, which is only one stop away. It takes
about ten minutes to walk from the station to the campus. Finding my housing
(SK Global House, more about it later) was a bit difficult since the Yonsei campus
is very big. Even many of the students did not know exactly where it is located
but after asking from several different people I was able to find my way there.
People in the SK Global House reception were very helpful and the check in
process was very easy. Plenty of other exchange students were also checking in
and I found my first friends already in the reception.
One of the buildings in Yonsei University
Exchange Studies
The Spring semester in Yonsei University started on February 24, 2015. That day
is the orientation day, which includes some lectures and performances. After the
orientation day pretty much all the practical things were unclear to me due to an
information overload, but other exchange students (especially the ones who had
been there the last semester as well) were always willing to help. Overall the
orientation day was still useful and I really recommend taking part on it.
The first thing that had to be done even before the orientation day is course
registration. This was on February 5, which was about three weeks before the
classes began. The registration is done in a Yonsei internal portal, which requires
a username and a password (I got these on an email together with the
acceptance email). The portal works 100% with internet explorer and other
browsers are not supported. Mac/safari combination seemed to work fine for me
though, but Chrome did not work at all. The portal is a bit complicated at first
and I recommend getting familiar with it before the course registration. The
registration was 10:00 am-4:59 pm Korean Time and it works on a first-come,
first-served basis. Many courses get full in the first fifteen minutes of
registration, so you should know which courses you want to take in advance.
Searching information about the courses and their scheduled is possible before
the real registration day. On the registration day I had some connection
problems and ended up registering late. Fortunately most business courses were
still available, but many courses related to Korean language/culture were
already full.
Yonsei offers plenty of different courses in different fields, but Aalto requires you
to take mainly business courses. Also one course related to local
language/culture is accepted. Master’s level students should take mainly
Master’s level courses, but undergraduate courses are also accepted if they are
not related to your current major or former studies. I ended up choosing three
undergraduate business courses and one course related to Korean culture. This
is because many of the graduate level business courses taught in English
(courses are in English or Korean) seemed very similar to the ones I had already
taken in Aalto or my former university. All of the courses were in the category
“Study Abroad” which Yonsei has created mainly for exchange students. This
meant that nearly everyone in the courses were exchange students as well. All of
the courses had to be confirmed with Aalto with an online form, so that the
credits can later be accepted back in Finland. I recommend doing this right away
after you have registered for your courses, so in case you have to change
something there will still be enough time to do so. My courses were accepted in a
few days, so no there was no extra hassle or paperwork, which is always nice.
As a Master’s level exchange student I had to take 24 credits ECTS, which means
four courses in Korea that all last the entire semester (instead of 5-period system
in Aalto). All of the courses had three lectures a week, usually split to two
different days.
Business and Society, IEE3325, 3 credits Korean / 6 credits ECTS,
undergraduate, Professor: Daryl Bockett
The first course I took was called Business and Society. The focus of the course
was to discuss about different point-of-views how business decisions affect our
society as a whole. The course encouraged to outside-the-box thinking and also
many of the downsides that business decisions have on the society were
discussed in an objective manner. The course does not have in-class exam, but
short reports have to be turned in nearly every week. The first part of the course
is about an investment portfolio, where you have to search for a different stock
every week that you believe would have potential to rise during the semester.
The second part of the class focuses on different problems such as:
unemployment, high CEO salaries, social inequalities etc. The course has a
midterm paper about these problems, which is fairly short (3-4 pages). The last
part of the course was to create a social business plan (does something good to
the society & makes profit), which required market research, teamwork,
financial calculations etc. A presentation about the business plan was the final
exam, and also a report about other teams’ presentations had to be turned in.
The professor in this class, Daryl Bockett from New Zealand, was a good speaker
with a relaxed attitude. He was really good in creating a conversation, which was
important since the class really didn’t have right or wrong answers. Daryl has a
background in social sciences, so the class was a bit different than regular
business courses, which was nice variation. He also understands that exchange
students want to explore the country and was always ready to negotiate about
possible absences. Overall I can highly recommend this class to future Yonsei
exchange students. The topics are interesting, the classes are based mainly on
discussions, and the course requirements and deadlines are very clear. I feel that
I got a lot out of this course.
Entrepreneurship and Strategy, IEE3340, 3 credits Korean / 6 credits ECTS,
undergraduate, Professor: Eunse Lee
This course was all about discussion. There were slides for each lecture, but the
professor was really good in creating conversations about every topic. In the first
part of the course we went through different terms such as: “What is
innovation?” or “What is the difference between being an entrepreneur and
being entrepreneurial”. The professor used good exampled from real life and
really challenged the students to think about the topics from different
perspectives. There is an in-class midterm exam, which consists of two essays.
These essays require knowing some of the terms, but the main focus is on how
well can you argue your opinions.
The professor Eunse Lee is a Korean guy who is one of the organizers of the only
Korean start-up event: beSUCCESS (could be compared to Slush in Finland). He
has a really good knowledge about the start-up world and really good
connections to Korean start-up companies. The class is separated into different
groups based on a business idea that will be presented as the final exam. People
with similar ideas will be put into the same group, and each group gets to meet
the CEO of a Seoul-based start-up company. The company is first presented and
the ideas of the CEO can be used to develop the groups own business idea. We
got to meet the CEO of a company called Hello Market, which is a mobile version
of a C2C buy/sell portal like Craigslist. This was a very interesting meeting and
gave a lot of extra value to the class.
I highly recommend this class to everyone, even though you wouldn’t be exactly
that interested in entrepreneurship. From the four classes I took in Yonsei, this
one was definitely the one that gave me the most to take home with me.
Marketing Channels, IEE3348, 3 credits Korean / 6 credits ECTS,
undergraduate, Professor: KH Kim
This class was a bit similar to the “Supply Chain Management” class in Aalto, but
focused more on different kinds of channels instead of the whole distribution
process. The class focused on channel objectives, channel design constraints,
pervasive channel tasks, channel alternatives and channel selection. The class
was more lecture-based than the two previous ones, even though there were
some discussions as well. The professor HK Kim, a Korean lady, wasn’t that great
in creating conversations and was pretty unconditional with her opinions.
Opinions to problems seemed to often be either right or wrong, and sometimes
there were no real arguments yet things were taught as facts. I felt there was a
slight cultural barrier between the professor and Western students. Overall the
topics were sometimes interesting and sometimes less interesting. The course
consisted of an in-class mid-term exam (multiple choice and short essay) and
final paper. The in-class exam was very difficult and every single student did
fairly badly on it. The final paper was very long, and took a lot of time and effort
to finish, but was more clear than the mid-term exam.
In general I am not sure if I recommend this course to others or not. The topic
itself was fairly good, but in my opinion the course was not structured well
enough and the atmosphere was a bit tense. Being used to the open discussions
and different opinions on the other classes, this course felt like a step backwards
in that sense.
Media Communication in Korea, IEE3317, 3 credits Korean / 6 credits ECTS,
undergraduate, Professor: Young-Eum Lee
Media Communication in Korea was the only non-business course I took, and this
was because I wanted to learn something about the Korean culture as well. This
course was totally lecture-based and the lecture topics were about Korean
history, and how it has affected the Media and censorship in Korea. The lectures
were alright, but sometimes they felt a bit monotonic. I did not get much out of
the lectures since I tend to remember a lot more out of open discussions, but I
still learned a lot about South Korea as a country, which was a great thing. This
was because of the mid-term and final exams, which both were take home
papers, but very long ones. I really do not know if it is a good thing or not that
the structure was like this, but at least I really learned a lot. Besides the takehome exams there was a group presentation of a topic that relates to the Korean
media.
Overall I would say that this course is not a must, but a good choice if you want
to know more about Korean history, and how one thing done by the government
has lead to another and finally to the current situation. I was very surprised to
how censorship there still is in the Korean media.
Magic of Jeju Island
Free time and other information
The cost of living in Seoul is fairly high. I decided to live in the SK Global House
(housing offered by Yonsei University), which is mainly for exchange students.
This is definitely the easiest and most convenient way to live during an exchange
semester. SK Global House is located on campus and it is very close to all of the
lecture halls. There is also a 24h convenient store, several cafes, restaurants and
a gym in the same building. Also most of the exchange students live there so it is
super easy to get to know fellow exchange students by living there. I also got
know many people during classes thanks to the several group projects that were
a part of the classes.
Yonsei also offers several sport and other clubs for students. I was planning to
play tennis and table tennis, but neither of these clubs accepted exchange
students. The reason for this never became clear to me, but sometimes in Korea
no simply just means no without a reason. I got used to it fairly quickly. Many of
the clubs do accept exchange students as well and many of friends had great
experiences in different clubs. A great experience for me was a club called Yonsei
Global, which is an international department of Yonsei University. They had a
soccer club, which everyone could join and casual games were organized every
few weeks. This is something I highly recommend if you enjoy soccer as a sport
even a slight bit! You meet more people and get to know local students better,
which is really nice.
Seoul has several different cool areas to offer and the subway system is very easy
and convenient. Seoul does not have one big city centrum, but different kinds of
places are located in different parts of the city. Sinchon, the area where Yonsei is
located, is a trendy cool area with many restaurants and cafes and the vibe there
is modern and young. Other cool places to visit are at least Itaewon, Hongdae and
Gangnam just to mention a few. I highly recommend exploring the city as much
as possible, and not to get stuck into Sinchon, even though it offers everything
you really need.
A view of a part of Seoul
I had class from Monday to Thursday, so on most weekends I did long weekend
trips to other places in Korea. If you are into hiking, Korea offers some absolutely
beautiful national parks for hikers. There are several cool spots in Seoul, but the
nicest ones are somewhere else, Jirisan and Seoraksan to mention a few. Even if
you are not into hiking I highly recommend visiting Busan, a beach city in the
south, and Jeju Island, which is an island that belongs to Korea located south
from Korea. Buses are easy to take pretty much everywhere from Seoul, and
internal flights are also very cheap when you fly to Busan or Jeju. The more you
can explore other places in Korea, the better in my opinion!
The weather was a bit cold once I got to Seoul in February, and was cold for
about 1-1,5 months. I had a winter jacket, but no winter shoes, which was fine.
After that the weather gets pretty warm quickly and overall the weather in Korea
is really nice during spring.
The food in Korea is often very spicy, but very tasty. Food in grocery stores is
pretty expensive, and it is cheaper to eat in cheap restaurants. The Yonsei
cafeteria offers cheap and good food, but there are also several small cheap
restaurants near the campus that offer meals for around 4-6 euros.
Korean people are really nice and polite in general. They are usually also big fans
of alcohol, so it is not difficult to find a party in Korea. The level of English is
mostly pretty bad, but somehow I managed everywhere without speaking hardly
any Korean.
Me and the sunrise in Jirisan national park
Final Comments
I highly recommend Yonsei University as an exchange university! The courses
are good, it is academically respected, and there are other activities going on at
the campus. Seoul is also a really good city with a lot of things to do, and South
Korea as a country is a very unique. I wouldn’t change anything during my
exchange, since I got to meet a lot of amazing people (locals and internationals),
got to explore a lot of Seoul and whole South Korea. I also really enjoyed my time
there and could have easily stayed for longer than just one semester.
I learned a lot about South Korea as a country and the culture. Many things are
done in groups, and for example meals are often shared with other people
instead of everyone ordering their own meal. Korean people are very polite and
respect other people a lot. Also if you drop your wallet somewhere, the odds are
higher that it will be returned to you instead of being stolen. The vibe in Korea is
also very unique. I really cannot describe it, because it is something that
everyone has to experience itself.
I also learned a bit of myself. I realized once again that I really enjoy variance in
my life. Different countries and different cultures are always very interesting and
it is always a big adventure learning how to live and behave in a new
atmosphere. Overall I did not really change as a person, but got new friends
around to world, and see the world a bit more widely. South Korea is definitely a
country that I want to back at least for a short visit!