International students faced difficulties in this semester’s course registration.
Edwyna Kurniawan, a freshman in the Division of International Studies, shared her experience about course registration and mentioned that the biggest difficulty was not being able to register for compulsory courses.
“To be honest, classes that I am able to take are very limited since I am not fluent in Korean. Failing to register for those few courses forced me to reduce the number of courses I take for the upcoming semester,” Kurniawan said.
Kurniawan added that she understands the necessity of limiting students per class when the class is held on campus in a limited space. However, as for classes with over 50 students that are going to be held fully online, she believes that increasing the capacity of classes is entirely possible.
Kurninawan also commented that she was looking forward to studying on campus and enjoy campus life. However, as some of her friends decided to take their courses online, many of them returned to their home countries.
“It is crucial for international students to build relationships with our peers as they will be our support system during our university career in Korea,” she said.
Li Hua, a senior from the Department of Communications and Media, mentionied that more classes for foreign students would be “a life-saver.” According to Hua, when it comes to courses taught in Korean, foreign students feel stressed about taking exams with Korean students.
“Foreign students would prefer to attend classes open to foreign students only. However, such classes are in shortage. It is also hard to register for compulsory or popular courses. Due to such problems, I am concerned that I might not be able to take certain classes when necessary and that may eventually lead to a delayed in graduation,” Hua said.
Also, a few courses that she registered for will be held on campus, which makes it hard for her to leave Korea. Some of the courses she signed up for require certain software and equipment. As it is difficult to explain the utilization of this software and equipment online, Hua decided to stay in Korea.
As a foreign student, Hua suggested that the school or professors could announce the final decision before the semester starts in order to have time to adjust her timetable.
Also as proposed to the school, Kurniawan pointed out that receiving personal counseling for course registration would make the work much easier for foreign students. Last semester was Kurniawan’s first year, and due to online courses, she never had a chance to build in-school connections. As such, when she had to sign up for courses, it was hard to turn to anyone to ask for help.
“It would be really nice to receive counseling on which courses to pick aligned with both my interests and the graduate criteria,” she concluded.