Exchange Report Yonsei University 2015 Spring Semester Bella Chan BBA (IS) Year 3 1
Table of Contents Part I Activity Log.3-5 Part II General Exchange Information 6-10 Part III Checklist. 10 2
Part I Activity Log February I arrived to Seoul on 23rd Feb with another exchange student who share the same major with me. Since there was a mandatory orientation activity at 9am of 24th Feb, so it is better to arrive one day before. During the Orientation, I met a lot of exchange students and enjoyed the student performance organised by the host university. At night we had party in a bar near campus. We joined the Seoul Tour organised by the host university, We met a lot of friends and had good food in a cheap price. This was really nice. During this week, we went to buy daily necessities and explored around the campus to make us familiar with it. If you want to buy daily necessities near the school, there is a store near the Sinchon subway station called Daiso which sells products in a very low price about W1000, like 7 HKD. March The semester started on 2nd Mar. After the course registration before semester starting, I just enrolled to only 2 courses, it was not enough. However, you can attend the first lesson of the courses you want to enroll and submit course registration applications to the professors so that you can still enroll to the courses. During this month, there were not much assignment, so most of the time just to travel around Seoul and other province. We went to many places in Gangwon Province, like Nanmi Island, Chunheon They are very close to Seoul, easy to go by Subway around 3 hours, so I recommand you to go in weekend. Also, the Edae station which is famous for shopping, is close to our campus, you can walk there in 15minute. During the free time, you can do shopping there, buying clothes and comestic in a cheap price. There are many street food around, so you can spend your free time on it. April There are more assignment and mid term in the middle of the semester. Compare to home university, the workload was not that high, so I can still spend time to explore around Seoul while getting the job done. There are many special coffee shop near campus, for example like Cat Cafe, Hello Kitty Cafe. If Girls you like it, I recommand you to go.the food and drinks are not expensive compared to HK, you can spend good time with friends. There are many 3
kind of performance next the shopping mall (UPLEX) near Yonsei everynight, you can enjoy the singing, dancing, magic performance for free. I joined a MT orgainsed by English club, which is very similar to the orientation camp in HK but only 2 days 1 night. In there, I met a lot of local students and made good friends with them. We played game and barbeque together. It is a good way to meet local students and know more about the Korean culture. Also I joined some Korean tour organised by local travel agency with friends. We watched the cherry blossom and sunrise. It is a good choice for lazy person like me, who do not have time to plan the trip when there are assignment and midterm examinations. In the last week of April, when all the midterm exam finished, we went to Jeju Island to travel since the flight ticket was cheap at that time. We went to see the natural environment, like Dead Volcano, Rapeseed fields, Waterfall, Manjang Cave (one of the longest lava tubes in the world). This trip made me feel relaxed and wonderfulness of the natural environment. May Everyone was getting new Korean hair style now~ There are few hair salon near Yonsei,so I changed my hair style to Korean style. No matter boys or girs, everyone got a new look! I joined a voluntary service activity called Global Angel. I went to their MT this month. We talked with the last royal family during the MT, learnt about the Korean traditional culture and tried the Korean traditional clothes (Hanbok). We know how to do the bowing stuff in acient Korea and the meaning of it. Each year in May, all of the universities in Korea hold their school festival, with many booths in their campus, just like the promotion period in HKUST. Other than that, They invite K POP stars to campus and organised a show. I joined the one in Yonsei called Akaraka and the Korea University one Ipsenlati. We saw many stars like PSY, EXO, Kim Beon Su, Rainbow The tickets are cheap, W11000 and W9000, less than 80 HKD. I strongly recommand you to go. Also, there are Buddha s Festivial in May. Korea is a country which values the Buddha s birthday a lot. So, there are many celebrations. you can see there are full of lanterns in the streets. You can visit the temples and know more about the culture. June MT again! This time was a joint MT with Korea University. I met a lot of local and exchange students in Korea University. It help me to know more about the different university culture in Korea. Since it was the end of the semester, there are lot of assignment, project, final 4
examination. You may expect that you have to work overnight to finish it. There are many 24 hours cafe near Campus, you can study there at late night while having drinks and cake. Then you will gain weight. HAHA! After exam, we went to Everland to relax, having good time with friends. Origally we planed to go to DMZ, because of MERS, it cancelled. During the last week, I met my friends few more times to farewell to each other, Writing postcards, sending stuff back home, travelling to Japan and back to HK. 5
Part II: General Exchange Information 1) Visa Procedures Going on exchange in Korea, you need to apply for the D 2 student visa at the Korean Consulate in Admiralty. The whole application process should be easy and fast in the case that you have prepared all the required documents and made copies of each one of them. To check out the list of required documents and download the visa application form, you may visit the following website: http://hkg.mofa.go.kr/english/as/hkg/visa/issuance/index.jsp. One important note is that remember to bring along with you all the original copy of the required document, because sometimes the staff may want to check the original copy. You are required to apply for the Alien Registration Card within 3 months. To register for this card, you have to go to the Immigration Office in Omokgyo. There will be a lot of people if you arrive there in the afternoon, so you are suggested to get there in the morning. 2) Orientation Activities On the first day in Yonsei, school offered Orientation talk and welcoming performance like Kpop dance show and school choir to exchange students. Also, There are a lot of orientation activities and local tours hosted by the Yonsei student clubs. You can join the day tour in a relatively cheap price and visit lots of places in Seoul. For example, the Gyeongbokgung Palace, N Seoul Tower, Cheonggyecheon (river) and TV show companies. 3) International Services & Activities There are international service office. It seperates in different region and countries. It has a sperate team for Asia students, so it is very convenient for exchange students. There is a Global Lounge near Student Union Building. You can find a lot of useful information there, like travelling information booklet, free magazine. They offered movie show with free pizza every month this semester. You can meet a lot of friends and local there. 6
4) Accommodations Exchange students usually choose between SK Global House and International House, both of which are located near East Gate of Yonsei campus. I stayed in International House, which provides double room only. There is a common bathroom, shower room, and a lounge (with a TV and cooking facilities) on each floor. In SK Global House, which is a bit more expensive than International House, you can choose between single room and double room. SK Global House has some additional facilities, such as fitness room and more study rooms. However, they are interconnected, you can still use the facilities in SK Global even though you live in International house. 5) Courses Registration The course registration process of Yonsei is easy and quick. If you are going on exchange during the spring semester, you would probably receive a detailed email about the course registration from the Office of International Affair (OIA) in late January. On the course registration day, you will be given 3 hours prior to the official registration time to put your desired courses into the Wish list (which is similar to the Shopping cart in UST). The course registration is also based on first come first serve basis. Don t worry if you cannot register the course that you want, you will still be given another course enrollment period before the semester start. Or you can also ask your professor to fill in the course registration approval form on the first day of the class and then submit it to OIA. The maximum credits that we are allowed to take in Yonsei are 18 while the minimum is 9. 6) Teaching & Assessment Methods The teaching style in Yonsei is quite similar to UST. Professors will upload their PowerPoint to YSCEC (a system like LMES) before each class. Some courses may also require you to do readings. However, attendance is extremely important there. According to the school policy, if you skip more than 1/3 of the classes in the semester, you will immediately get a fail in the course but some professors may have stricter requirements. Here are the courses that I took: 7
Course Code Course Title Credits BIZ3180 Managing in China 3 BIZ3191 Managing Global Alliance 3 BIZ3143 Entrepreneurial Management 3 KLI1001 Intensive Korean Language (Level 1) 6 7) Sports & Recreation Facilities There is a gym room located in the ground floor of student dormitory SK Global house, where all residents can get in no matter you are living in SK Global house or International house. Another gym room is located in Between the Main Library and the 3rd Engineering Department Building. Also, there are basketball court, tennis court and soccer field. 8) Cost/Expenses Item Expense in Korean Won Accommodation 1,456,000 Food and Drink 1,870,000 Shopping 656,000 Entertainment 348,000 Transport 592,000 Travel 125,000 Grocery 120,000 Phone Service 50,000 Textbook 90,000 8
9) Social Clubs & Networking Opportunities There are several kinds of international student clubs, such as mentor program, community service, Christian fellowship, and so on. You can get more information and join on the orientation day. You can join local student clubs as well. There will be booths of student clubs on both sides of the campus main street during the beginning of the semester, similar to promotion period in HKUST. If you do not speak Korean, you can join some international clubs and English clubs. 10) Health & Safety Overall, Seoul is a safe place to live. Not many crimes occur compared to other cities and you can find police stations quite easily. However, you should be careful in midnight at Sinchon because there are many drunk people around. If you are sick, you can visit the health care center in student union building or buying medincine in pharmacy stores near campus. In case of emergency or serious illness, you can go to Yonsei Severance Hospital, which is next to Yonsei University. 11) Food There are several canteens and restaurants in campus. You can find it in student union building. It will cost you about 3,000 Won a meal. You can also find many restaurants in Sinchon area as well, including many kind of Korean food, like fried chicken, chicken soup, barbeque meat, pancake. An ordinary Korean meal costs around 5,000 Won. Also, Some food can be very spicy. However, there is non spicy food too, so don t worry if you really cannot eat anything spicy. 12) Transportation Yonsei University is close to subway station. It is very convenient for you to use subway. From main entrance to Sinchon subway station is only about 5 10 minute walk. From dorms, 9
it is about 20 minutes. If walking from dorms, it would be better to walk to Edae Station, which is about 10 minutes. There are also many buses that pass through Yonsei or Sinchon. They are also convenient. You can use google map route to help. 13) Climate In late February and March, it is still winter in Korea, the temperature could below 0 c, so it is better to wear down jacket, gloves, thick trousers. If you are lucky, you may see snow sometimes. Start from April, the weather will get much warmer, but the temperature difference between daytime and nighttime is very large, so it is better to bring a coat if you go outside at night. In June, it is summer, hot but not humid. 14) Communication In Campus, there are many things written in both Korean and English, students and staff can speak English. Outside Campus, Most Koreans do not know how to speak English, so you 11may face some language barriers at the beginning. However, some restaurants and shops in Seoul have staff speaking Mandarin. Some of the menu are in Chinese. It is better for you to learn some basic Korean phrases before coming to Korea. 15) Cautionary measures It is better to check the emergency telephone number in Korea first and save it in your phone. Part III:Checklist Items to bring 1. Adaptors 2. Medicine 3. Thick clothes and summer clothes 4. Laptop 5. Router and cable 6. Hair dryer 10
7. Throat soothing drinks 11