How I Got Through 5 Classes in 3 Days a Week: Part 1

As an Asian Studies major who’s done most of their GEDs, I was given essentially free reign to take whatever classes I wanted. So I did.

While I’m abroad, I want to be able to have the time to do as I want, if, and when I want so I took only IEE courses, therefore easier. Even though Yonsei only requires a minimum of nine credits and most American colleges, such as the one I attend, only require a minimum of 12 credits to be at full-time student status, IES Abroad still requires 15 credits so I chose Understanding K-Pop, Basic Korean, Korean Popular Culture and Korean Wave, Korean Traditional Music and Culture, and Korean Art History. I was lucky that these five classes are spread out on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, so I have longer weekends.

The attendance policy for almost every class is the same in the regard that once you have five unexcused absences, you will automatically fail the class and there’s nothing you or the teacher can do at that point. Most of the Basic Korean classes have it so you can miss a total of 15 hours of class and once you miss 16 hours you fail the class. It may be the same for the Intensive Korean classes, but since I didn’t take the class I don’t know.

Some teachers will take attendance themselves, have you scan your student id on a scanner at the room, or enter a code on an app you will need to get (y-attend).

Understanding K-Pop

The teacher had us all introduce ourselves, which took a very long time since she went over every single one of us and there were probably about 50+ students. We briefly went over the syllabus and were put into groups of about eight for our mid-term project, being to create a music video of our preference.

This class did have some overlap with my Korean Traditional Music and Culture class, which is to be expected since both cover music in Korea. From what I know, many of the IEE classes that relate to music, culture, and even history all have overlap when it comes to K-pop, likely since K-pop is so intertwined with the music, culture, and history of South Korea.

There is a term paper and the teacher won’t make any mention of it through the semester, except for maybe on the first day when we briefly went over the syllabus (though at this point I can’t say I clearly remember). The term paper is to be five pages with a topic of anything relating to K-pop. The teacher told my friend when she asked that one could include your personal experience with K-pop.

Basic Korean

For both basic and intensive Korean, the first class with be a placement test. Everyone I talked to agreed that is was hard, but that is kinda the point. It includes a written part and listening/speaking part. The placement tests are all very similar to each other, but they do vary proctor to proctor, not by much though. One may ask about the weather, one may ask when you landed in Korea, it all just depends. If you know no Korean whatsoever or only know very minimal Korean, there’s no need to show up to this class and you will be automatically placed in Level 1.

Class for me typically would include learning a lesson, sometimes two lessons, on Tuesday (two hour class day) and review of the lesson on Thursday (one hour class day).

I personally really like my class and find it very fun.

• The building you take the placement test is a different building from where you have class, it’s right next to it so it’s not far at least. At least, this was the case for my semester. 

Midterms

Understanding K-Pop ~ The midterm was the music video. We’re given a lot of freedom from what song(s) the group wants to pick, to if the group wants to include choreography, etc.

Basic Korean ~ Similar to the placement test, there’s a written part and a speaking/listening part. There’s a ‘quiz’ that also covers just listening, though the audios all seem to be from the textbook with similar questions to the textbook. There is also a essay part of seven sentences that use three new grammars that were learned.

Finals

Understanding K-Pop ~ Our final was online and 30 questions in 50 minutes. Since it was online, it was open note and all the information was in the slides. It wasn’t something I’d consider very stressful by any means.

Basic Korean ~ The final is the same format as the midterm, just covering what we learned after the midterm.