Justin's Exchange to Yonsei University | South Korea
My experience so far in South Korea has been nothing short of amazing, exciting, enlightening and exceptionally difficult. Seoul is an incredible city that has so much to offer and is always on the go, and Yonsei University has a beautiful campus and a rich student culture. I have made heaps of friends, including international students and local Koreans. I have seen and learnt many interesting aspects about South Korea and its culture. I have made some great contacts, including academic and personal. And I've made significant progress in my academic field; doing well in my courses, securing and successfully completing an internship at a world leading Nanoscience research facility at Yonsei University, and lining up a potential additional internship for the beginning of 2016.
I was the only westerner in my classes, and also the only student to ask questions regularly. I’ve discovered this is very uncommon practice in Korean culture. I found Koreans to be quite shy, and afraid to ask questions, either due to the risk of being seen as not smart or not having done enough study, or the risk it could insinuate a lack of teaching skill on behalf of the professor. Despite this, my professors didn’t discourage questions, and two of them actively encouraged questions or even picked students out to answer questions. They even used me as an example of how they wanted their students to engage in the classroom (as if being the only foreigner and student asking questions didn’t make me stand out enough!). They were also very critical of the Korean study culture (which involves mostly learning by wrote, with utmost importance put on getting the best grades and getting into the best school), and emphasised the importance of understanding, creativity and engagement as more important than grades. This is especially significant, as South Korea is known as a country with high technical proficiency, with students great at math, but lacking in scientific innovation and creative insight.
My professor for ‘Quantum Mechanics for Chemical Engineering’ particularly stood out. A charismatic, funny and incredibly knowledgeable teacher, he quickly took an interest in me as I asked lots of questions and was very engaged in class. He often used me as an example and asked me questions and for opinions in class (he even asked me more than once whether I had a girlfriend! I was a bit taken aback, but soon found it was common in Korean culture). He took a liking to me, and offered me a paid internship at the beginning of next year which I’m excited to take him up on. As my favourite professor, I also asked him to participate in an interview to promote the New Colombo Plan Scholarship, which was arranged by Josephine Byun from the Australian Embassy, and he gladly accepted.
Another contact I made was my lecturer for ‘Advanced Nanomaterials’ and Dean of Material Science and Engineering at Yonsei. He also took a liking to me, even giving me a guided tour of his laboratory. He told me about some of his fascinating research on silicon nanowires and their potential application in photovoltaics, optoelectronics, bioelectronics, and even computer-brain interfaces! Definitely something I might consider researching in the future as it seems like an intriguing future material.
Since mid last year I’d had my heart set on the summer internship at Yonsei’s Center for Evolutionary Nanoparticles, and was very fortunate to find my class ‘Inorganic Materials Chemistry’ was being lectured by the director; Professor Cheon Jinwoo. I only discovered after joining the class and talking to other Koreans that he is actually a very famous scientist in South Korea, the best-funded researcher at Yonsei, and even tipped to win a Nobel Prize! Once I recognised him as the head of the internship program I wished to undertake, I made sure I talked to him about myself and my interest in the internship. He seemed very interested in me and said he would look favourably on my application. I obviously I made an impression, as I eventually found myself in the internship with students from very prestigious universities; two from Oxford, one from NYU and one from Berkley.
I’ve made two other significant contacts in South Korea. One was a very lucky encounter with a friendly Korean man I was sitting next to on the plane from Singapore to Seoul. We started talking and when he discovered I was going to study at Yonsei University he was immediately fascinated. It turns out that he studied Electrical Engineering at Yonsei many years ago, and is now the global marketing director for LG! He took me out for dinner and we fast became friends. We are actually meeting again next week. He is a super friendly, outgoing and interesting guy, and seems to really miss his university days. I think befriending me was a way to feel young again, and also gain some insight into how his beloved university is going. The other contact was made through family. A cousin and family friend used to work for FLIR Systems – an infrared imaging company in Seoul. He introduced me to a close friend he worked with there who has a family in Seoul, and I have now become an adopted member of the family! His son and daughter are similar in age to me and he was excited about them becoming my friends. They have since taken me out for dinner, had me around their house for a traditional Korean BBQ lunch, and just last week I came back from an awesome five day trip to Jeju Island with their son Jin.
Overall, I have had a very successful and productive year, making many friends and contacts, learning a great deal in both my studies and in experiencing the rich culture and interesting people of South Korea. I have learnt the basics of Korean language in a 6 week course I did over the summer, but am looking forward to learning more during next semester. I am loving Seoul and South Korea and very glad to be staying for the whole year!
- Justin studied abroad at Yonsei University in South Korea
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