How' Your Schooling?

How would Korean classes differ from those in other countries? The Sookmyung Times (SMT) interviewed exchanged students, Sookmyungians and professor what differences they found and asked how they think about those differences.

Professor Dustin Tower
United States

In the U.S.A., students usually talk to others in the class, but here in Korea, people don’t talk to strangers. Students here, when I ask them if they have any questions about class, no one raises her hand, but after class students come up to me individually to ask questions. I t’s an overall cultural thing, I think. Lastly, we are very strict about plagiarism in the United States. I have seen students expelled from graduate school because of that. We always give references or use quotation marks. However in Korea, plagiarism is still very important, but not so strict. Many times students here don’t give a reference for the information they’ve got from books or websites.

Jungsun Park,
Department of Visual & Multimedia Design ’09

I went to international school from elementary to high school. I’m not quite sure because I didn’t go to university in other countries, but I thought students here study very hard. Sometimes the class atmosphere is so heavy that it makes me feel pressure. Another different thing is that most of the time, students do not answer professors’ questions during the lecture, even when they know the
answer. I think it is because they are shy or do not want to stand out in front of many people.

G-Joe Marquis, Deparment of Biological Science
Canada

The biggest difference I felt was the attendance. From where I came from, attendance is not so important in university. Of course, if I miss a class, that will automatically affects my grade, because I just missed out some part of my study. However, it does not affect my grade directly like here in Korea. I don’t understand why attendance takes like 20 percent of my final grade. Unlike Korea, where students mostly take six or seven subjects for a semester, we take four or five classes in one semester. And for students not answering professor’s questions during classes or not talking with others sitting next to them, I think it depends on each person.

Alex Barbeau, Division of Business Administration
United States

I’ve been here in Korea for only two weeks, so maybe I didn’t have much time to recognize many differences. But I also thought that attendance was considered very importantly here in Korea. That is
very different since we don’t take attendance in the U.S.A.. I didn’t know about the different perception about plagiarism in Korea, but if it is true I think it’s very strange because in my country you can go to jail for that and professors usually check on them.

Jisu Lee, Division of Law ’09

In other countries, especially the western countries like the U.S.A. or Canada, they seemed to have more presentations and group works than we had in middle and high school. In Korea, only teachers speak in front of the class, and all the students are busy taking notes. We are just very used to this form of class. Therefore, I think most of us are not so comfortable with team plays, but prefer to work individually. Being socially slow in the classes, I think it’s just a cultural thing. Koreans do not really like receiving attention.

Yota Kitade, College of Economics & Business Administration
Japan

For attendance, it is very similar with Korea in Japan. Some lectures do take attendance importantly. It depends though. And we don’t really answer or react to professors questions during classes too. For the differences I felt, first of all, there were very few English lectures in the university I went in Japan but here in Korea there are many lectures in English. I heard Korean students sometimes brings food in classes as they couldn’t have lunch or breakfast but in Japan it is hard to see students eating during classes. I also agree that Korean students are very competitive on studying. Lastly, we don’t have group assignments in Japan. We only have group discussions and Japanese college students have to do a lot of seminars during classes.

Zhang Ke, Department of Japanese Studies
China

In China, the importance of attendance is depended on professors too. Some professors consider attendance and some do not care so much. There are group assignments and team plays in Korea but I’ve never had group assignments back in China. That would be one of the biggest differences between Chinese university and Korean university. We also eat during classes like here but not allowing any others to see. In common, when professors ask questions during the lectures no one really answers the questions in China too.

Park Kim Injin