First off we have CID (Cultural Internship Discussion) we meet once a week for an hour. This is a time to discuss and just talk about the exchange program, what to expect from the program, how to interact in Global Village (our dorms) and possible ways to prevent culture shock or customs to be aware of that may be vastly different than North America. The English Exchanges are also attached to this class to give it 6 credits. The exchanges are when we have one on one (possibly one on two) time with a Korean student and we teach/have conversations with them in English.
We haven't started Exchanges yet, so I will update about that when they begin on Monday.
Next we have our Korean Speaking and Writing classes. They are broken down into 3 levels beginner, intermediate & advance. When you are new to the program they automatically put you into the beginner level. However, if you have a bit of Korean knowledge you can take the Korean placement during our orientation and see if you can move up a level. We have to buy a textbook for this course but their textbooks are cheaper here. Fun Fun Korean 1 - Textbook is 28 000 won and Fun Fun Korean 1 - Workbook is 18 000. I am in level 2. The speaker teacher gives us a quiz every Monday and the writing teacher gives a lot of homework so it balances out. Both teachers are super nice and speak 90% in Korean. When we seem really lost they will repeat the instructions in English.
Then I have Beginner Korean Dance. We have to take a culture class that is worth 1 credit and is 2 hrs each week. The other 3 options are Taekwondo, Calligraphy & Traditional Korean Instruments. This class so far seems very cool! The teacher is really nice and is a great dancer, from what I have seen thus far. We will be learning the Korean traditional fan dance and the 3 drum dance. She also wants to show us clips from dances from around the world so we can compare the different styles to traditional Korean dance. Later we will also get to try on Hanbok (the Korean traditional clothes) and do the fan dance.
The above are the required classes. Then we have two electives. I choose Korean Society & Culture because it is in line with my major, Asian Studies, and Global Strategy of Korean Business. I picked that course because returning international students told me great things about that class.
Korean Society & Culture is a great class. The teacher gives us reading, no textbook, and we then have in class discussion over the various topics. We just watched a documentary comparing Western thinking to Eastern thinking. The video was very interesting and we were able to have some great discussion in class!
Global Strategy of Korean Business the teacher is very funny. We did not go in depth yet because last week on Tuesday was a holiday for this class we only had introductions. This class has the most people out of all my other classes. There are actually 3 Korean students, 1 Chinese student and then about 9 international students. I have feeling we will be having some great discussion in this class. Plus we will be going on two field trips to 2 major Korean companies to see how their factories and businesses are ran.
I am looking forward to all my classes!!! After just going to 1-2 classes I already am loving all my teachers and classmates. The group of international students this year are amazing. They are are nice and friendly. This is going to be an awesome semester! I'll give another update to classes later on after a few months. If you have any questions just ask and I'll try to answer as best I can.
Note: all classes are taught in English, except the Korean classes =)
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