A fourth grade student who major in Business Administration took two of the required courses for her major at the exchange partner school and requested to transfer the credits for the required course credits. However, she found out after receiving a mail from the chair of the department that required courses for her major are to be only taken in Ewha and the course credits took in exchange school will be not be accepted as major credits. “As I did not know about the rule, I have to take one more semester to be able to graduate and it is my ninth semester,” a fourth grade student who wanted to remain anonymous said.
Every year there are students who are not fully aware of the rules set up in each college and department concerning transferring course credits attained from exchange partner schools to Ewha.
All students have to go through the following process. First, they need to submit an English transcript from the exchange school to the Office of Global Affairs and insert the names, credits, and scores of the courses they took on the “transferring grades” tab of the Ewha Portal Intranet System. Then, they must print the page and ask the Chair of the Students’ Department whether their courses can be recognized as major or general elective courses.
Afterwards, students need to submit the sheet with the Department Chair’s approval and submit it to the Registrar’s Office.
However, the Department Chair’s approval differs case by case. Also, every college and department applies different rules concerning the documents to submit to the Chair.
Also, if the courses that a student had taken at her exchange school are 70 percent similar to the contents of a course existant in Ewha, the credits are not approved as major. “The purpose of the exchange student program is to enable students to take a variety of courses outside of Ewha in other nations,” Professor Jung Myung-ho, the Chair of the Department of Business Administration said. “It is not to regulate students but to give them opportunities to learn different subjects without redundancy.”
Students, who major, double major or minor major in Business Administration can ask for approval concerning course credit transfer via e-mail before departure or after by hardcopy of the list of courses they took at exchange schools.
Different to the Department of Business Administration, the Department of English Education only approves the course credits after students come back from their exchange schools. Students have to turn in the syllabus, course description, assignments and other related materials to the Department Chair for approval.
“As the course description does not explain whether it should be accepted as English Education major course or not, the process of thoroughly going through all the materials is necessary,” Park See-young, the Chair of the Department of English Education said. “Also to approve the credit took in the exchange schools, the level of the course should be the same as the one in our school.”
Different rules apply in every college and departments. Therefore, it is recommended that students check the rules by asking the Chair of their department or the Registrar’s Office.
“As all of the information concerning transferring course credits is written on the Ewha homepage, students should read them and be aware of the rules,” Kang Hak-su, a staff member of the Registrar’s Office said.