Originally, there was a three-day examination period for both midterm and final exams, during which all classes were cancelled and only exams for liberal arts courses took place. However, as the examination period was removed, all exam schedules are left to the discretion of professors. Students are responding negatively as the previous examination period had allowed students to ease the burden of having to attend class while preparing for exams.
“The alternation just made it difficult to concentrate on the exams,” said Lee Hye-won, a sophomore majoring in Economics.
The school insists the change will not cause any confusion.
“By removing the exam period, it became sufficient to secure the required number of school days set by the government since major courses are not to be cancelled for three days anymore,” said Jeong Kyung-hee, the leader of Office of Faculty & Academic Affairs. “Also, there is no reason for any confusion as all students will take their exams during their class hours.”
The amendment in the course registration system was made to prevent students from experiencing inconvenience when errors occur while logging into the crowded website. Starting from the registration for the fall semester of 2015, students were able to log in 30 minutes before and be on standby. Despite the good intentions behind, conflicting opinions rose among the students.
“Many students went through being logged out automatically or the website freezing,” said a sophomore majoring in English Language & Literature.
Although complaints were found on student communities, the school was unaware of the errors, stating that they did not receive any complaints from the students.
Also from the fall semester, students are not required to complete both the five fields and capacities, but only the fields; literature and language, expression and art, history and philosophy, the human and society, and science and technology.
“The completion requirement was modified prior to the amendment of academic regulations that will take effect in 2016,” said Chang Mi-Young, the director of Center for General Education. “From 2016, as new capacities will be applied, the previous capacity requirements have become unnecessary.”
Students are showing diverse reactions from mere recognition of the change to intense objection. Depending on students’ further actions, the results of the new policies remain to be seen.
Yang Hae-in
allesy94@ewhain.net