Exchange Report - Spring 2015

Yonsei

Seoul,

79381W

Source: http://www.uq.edu.au/uqabroad/yonsei-university

Yonsei University 50 Yonsei-ro Sepdaemun-gu 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 that Aalto has an exchange deal with are located in the capital, Seoul. All three SKY-universities (Seoul National University, and ) 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 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 /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 take- home 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, 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 , 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!