South Korea is a great place to study… what a typical beginning. Does not match up with a to be storyteller and a journalist, right?

But it’s true – it is a great place to study. Whether you are an exchange student or a regular program one, you will be very happy to be here and not somewhere else.

I arrived to Korea as a result of the most fascinating coincidence in my life. As a “mature” student I was catching up with my education by doing two BA’s at one time – one of them in geography merged with biology (environmental protection track) and one of them in diplomacy, both on good private universities.
It was a professor of biology from, a researcher at Polish Academy of Sc iences, who approached me in the university corridor asking “Would you like to go to Korea?”.

I agreed on a haste as I usually do and I never ever regretted it. Although my first stay was just a lab job with all it’s limitations, as not a regular student I had some difficulties, already then I knew how it is to study here in Korea.

Food- excellent and affordable. For that price – 1500- 2500 KRW in Poland I would buy probably a coffee in Coffee Heaven but definately not a dinner. Coffee places, sandwich bars, sport facilities, all in affordable price. This is amazing!

The way campus is organized varies depending on the university, but there are several similarities.

At first fascilities are usually open 24/7 for usage, such as library, study rooms, PC labs, also dormitories are open 24/7 with no silly time limitations. This merged with food, student union buildings, sporting areas makes it very tempting to stay on campus for most of the time, as it is very convenient. A city in itself. Unlike in Europe where there are hardly any dormitories or campuses, or hardly any student communities packed in one area and really close to each other.

It is also easy to make Korean friends. They want to get closer, are open to the world, want to know about it as much as possible. Unlike many other Asian communities are not superficial or double faced, although of course they belong to different culture. They are shy, so do not expect that you will approach them in 1 hour.

For studying and living in Korea I would recommend joining language program. That’s where you make international friends usually, with whom you get wasted all the time or you try to know the country and it’s people a little bit.

Speaking of it, universities organize a lot of cultural events, both to explore Korea and both to get themselves know a little bit about the world. Two of them I have freshly in my memories, The International Food Festival at Seoul National University when I pretended French lady (:P) and The International Day at Ajou University where my team won the national performance part and we ended up in the newspapers.

The patient reader who made it up to this point probably know that the author of this article really likes Korea and arrived here again. Thankfully because of studying double degree I used another opportunity to come to Ajou University as an exchange student in EU grant for leadership in something which sounds very sophisticated. Ok, leadership in sustainable development.

Those who are ambitious will not be disappointed. On best Korean universities there will be plenty of opportunities to cooperate closely with professors and publish research papers in recognized international journals. Normally elsewhere students are ignored intellectually and are treated as capable only if they enter PhD degree ( I know it’s not very diplomatic remark, but it’s true, especially in Poland, where I come from).

The academic year starts in spring and finishes in winter. Semester is short and work intense, and holidays are eligible only for students in humanities. Although it always depends on a person and the mindset, but those in engineering usually treat they lab seminars as work assignment and they really spend long hours working. But it has it’s advantages – if you end up published in Elsevier, that’s worth it isn’t it?

This article is written from a perspective of a person who is generally hardworking and ambitious, but if you want to get wasted and have fun in Korea, you can. It’s full of clubs, bars, restaurants, discos, nurebangs, Korean ladies are beautiful and guys are nice. Ah, al,ost forgotten. It is the safest country in the world. No terrorism here and no subway bombings. And if you leave your wallet on subway, be sure you will get it back.

I have just accomplished my grant program in Korea. And I will be back soon for my PhD. If you think about studying anywhere in the world, study in Korea. It’s worth it.

- Aga

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About Aga:
Aga (Agnieszka Piasecka), came to South Korea from Poland at first to work as a research assistant at the School of Biology at Seoul National University in 2009 and later as an exchange student to Ajou University in the field of Social Science. She has been here for total time of almost 15  months. She also maintains a blog www.coastalasiaunrevealed.blogspot.com. To contact Aga you can mail her at [email protected]

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If you are currently working or studying in Korea and would like to share your experience on this site then mail us at: [email protected]

The news about Robots teaching English to kids and adults alike across South Korea has been published across media around the world. I came across this information here and here.

As per the news around 30 robots would be deployed for teaching English to youngsters in various South Korean city. The egg shaped robot will display a Caucasian woman face in its TV display panel. And some English teachers  from Philippines would remotely control the class. And their facial responses would be mapped to the Caucasian woman’s face to simulate her expressions in the class as per students behavior.

The current pilot project would be tested for 4 months and would be adopted as an alternative mostly in rural and remote parts of Korea where foreign teachers are not willing to relocate and the government may have certain budget constraints to recruit English Teachers.

It ‘sounds’ like a good alternative and seem to have received a good response from youngsters and adults but in my view it is not completely addressing the issue. Also the English teaching robots can give rise to new unforeseen issues which they might have failed to notice.

Here are a few things that comes to my mind in response to the benefits they have put forth in adopting Robots as English teachers.

The kids seemed to love it since the robots look, well, cute and interesting. But some adults also expressed interest, saying they may feel less nervous talking to robots than a real person

and

Having robots in the classroom makes the students more active in participating, especially shy ones afraid of speaking out to human teachers. The machines can be an efficient tool to hone language skills for many people who feel nervous about conversing with flesh-and-blood foreigners

So in my opinion if the kids are shy and nervous to face human (foreign) teachers then what would make them confident when they will pass out of the school and face the real world. Also a human teachers role is not just limited to teaching. A students relationship with teacher is more like a bond where it goes beyond teaching. There are times when a kid needs to confide in the teacher and there are times when a kid needs to be disciplined by a teacher.  Also as a kid, teachers are the first living person we come in contact with who inspire us to be like them when we grow. There are certain qualities which every student imbibe from its teacher.

The idea behind recruiting robots as teachers are that they are highly cost effective. And the government would not be required to pay accommodation, sick leaves, severance pay to the robots. I do understand the cost is the major factor in every business but replacing human teachers with robots is not the effective solution. South Korea is already facing issues with their locals not speaking English and adopting robots in no way is going to guarantee that the ratio of students who could speak fluent English will increase.  It would rather aggravate the issue.

Another thing that disappoints me is that they have used the face of a Caucasian lady. I mean why just a Caucasian white woman character. A student should be exposed to all sexes and all nationalities. So ideally the robot should have avatars which could be configured for every new session. English today is not just restricted to white or black people residing in US, UK, Canada and Australia. English is widely spoken across the world in India, Singapore, Philippines and various other countries. Also an average Korean if he has to interact with Japanese, Chinese or other Asian nationals then the only language he is supposed to use is English. So ideally the robot should have avatars for Indians, Japanese, Chinese, Europeans, Russians male and female in their local dialect.

Secondly having Robots as Teachers would make the conversation so one sided.  I do agree I have not experienced the Robots myself nor I have attended the class but it is like

I do not oppose technology. I rather welcome it with open hands. But it is important to take into consideration the limitation as well as advantages of technology adoption and accordingly formulate a strategy for adoption. A better solution would be to

• Use robots as assistants rather than replacing them.
• Add avatars supporting Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Philippine, European, Russian and Native Speaking characters – both male and female. This would make the adult education more wholesome and would expose the kids to more English Language speakers for different nationalities at an early age.
• If cost is the biggest factor, then recruit teachers from India. Indians have done a better job at learning English without even recruiting native speakers as teachers. The English Teachers in India are the locals who speak English as good as Native Speakers.

My final words – Communication is beyond learning the language. It is more about the confidence with which you speak the language. And you could be confident only if you speak in person rather than simulate speaking.