Semester schedule, midterms/final exams, weekly schedule, courses I took, study cafes, and biggest academic similarities/differences!
General Spring Semester Schedule:
Yonsei’s Spring 2022 semester spanned over 16 weeks, starting on Wednesday, March 2nd, and ending on Tuesday, June 21st. Thus, each dedicated weekly period of course material/content/assignments began each Wednesday, and ended the following Tuesday, which was quite different from the Monday to Friday schedule that I was accustomed to at my home university at UH Manoa.
Exam Periods (Midterms and Finals):
Out of the 16 weeks of the semester, 2 weeks are strictly dedicated to exams (midterms and finals): Week 8 for midterms (4/20 - 4/26) and Week 16 for finals (6/15 - 6/21). The week prior to finals is also meant to be a self-study period, although this will depend on the way that your professor lays out the semester schedule for your class.
In my experience, professors have also designated exams to take place either the week before or the week after the supposed exam weeks (with the exception that no professors conducted final exams after the semester ended of course!). For example, my Business and Society class (IEE3325) had our midterm exam the Monday (5/2) following midterm week. And for finals, I was luckily able to finish them early, with my last final exam being on 6/15, because for my classes I had a combination of group presentations/projects, papers, and exams which counted as my finals, most of which were due prior to exam week.
Courses & Weekly Schedule:
For my own weekly class schedule, I took a standard full-time load of 4 courses (3 credits each) which were: Korean Pop Culture and Korean Wave (IEE1154), Organizational Behavior (BIZ1102), Business and Society (IEE3325), and Korean 1 (IEE3341). Although classes are normally conducted twice a week, I was very fortunate to be able to design my weekly schedule to only have classes 3 days per week (Mon - Wed), since one of my classes only met once a week for 3 hours (my Korean Pop Culture class). This allowed for me to have a lot of free time and flexibility to explore the country and really immerse myself into Korean life and cultural experiences. Of course, all of my classes were conducted online (as were most of Yonsei’s classes this past semester), which was initially disappointing since I had been looking forward to having a full experience of learning in the classroom and interacting with students and professors at Yonsei, however, the upside of classes being conducted completely online was that I had a lot of flexibility to travel around Korea and take my classes from different locations, such as cafes.
Cafes:
That’s another thing— cafe culture and cafe-hopping is definitely a distinct pastime and part of life in Korea that visitors and exchange students should and will experience! There are so many different kinds of cafes: animal cafes, specific themed cafes, study cafes, and many, many cool and unique instagram-worthy cafes. The interior design of cafes and places in Korea in general are definitely on another level, and there is no end of interesting cafes to visit, since there is such a range and variety of places to go to, with so many that cater to or focus on more niche interests/themes.
In preparation for midterms and finals, or any other time throughout the semester that I really had to study and get work done, study cafes and 24-hour cafes were my go to! I found that I had a difficult time focusing and getting work done at home, but I was able to focus for long periods of time and get lots of work done by physically going to a cafe with the intended purpose of studying, and usually being surrounded by other students or people doing work as well. If I wasn’t looking to hop on a bus or walk 20 minutes to get to Sinchon, I would often go to a Mega Coffee nearby where I lived in Yeonhui-dong or another cafe called Our Onz, where I’d get settled at a table nearby an outlet, purchase a latte, connect to the cafe’s wifi, and just get in the zone for the next few or several hours. I wasn’t able to find any 24-hour study cafes in Yeonhui-dong where I lived, but there were two of them in Sinchon where I would often go to with friends to work on projects and assignments, which was very convenient since I didn’t have to worry about closing times of course. One of them was called Cafe Ann, and the other’s name escapes my memory, but it is located very near to Cafe Ann, maybe just one side-street over. Another place in Sinchon I liked studying at that was not open 24-hours was BanaPresso, which has good seating (5 floors and a nice view overlooking Sinchon), lots of outlets, and decent wifi. These cafes really came in clutch, and were also pretty packed the week of and leading up to midterms and finals seasons, so during exam seasons, you would need to get to your favorite study cafes earlier in the day to secure a spot to sit at, since students would park themselves at the cafes all day (and all night, if it was a 24-hour cafe).
Main Similarities/Differences:
Doing school in another country had its similarities and differences to what I was used to back home. On one hand, I was already very accustomed to the online aspect of school, with classes being conducted via Zoom, so I didn’t really have to get used to much for that, and I also sadly didn’t really get to familiarize myself with the buildings and student facilities on campus at Yonsei very much (other than going to the Student Union Building, Samsung Library, and walking across campus to the dorms sometimes), since there was no need to. On the other hand, there were some differences, such as the fact that most classes had only a few larger assignments/projects throughout the semester and/or just midterms and finals which impacted your final grade. The only class that I would have weekly or bi-weekly assignments (homework and quizzes) for was my Korean Language class, which makes sense since it’s a language class of course, and these assignments were very manageable! So basically, as a student at Yonsei or at most Korean universities, it is up to you how you want to study throughout the semester: either gradually, week by week throughout the semester, or cram the week(s) of and leading up to exam periods. Personally, I ended up doing a combination of both.
Another difference was that professors were more particular about class attendance at Yonsei (with university policies requiring students to be present for at least 2/3 of classes throughout the semester, in order to pass a class). Policies differed from professor to professor, but many professors required students to have their cameras on, faces visible, and to be situated quiet, non-distracting place. Some professors allowed students to turn their cameras off and still counted them as present, but for the most part, you needed to have your camera on. There was an attendance taking app and portal connected to LearnUs (Laulima equivalent), called Y-Attend, where you could check your attendance status every class and your attendance record throughout the semester, where you were recorded as ‘Present,’ ‘Late in,’ ‘Left early,’ or ‘Absent’ each class. Some professors would have students enter in an attendance code at the beginning of class to Y-Attend, some would just take attendance by calling names and taking roll manually, and others would check attendance by viewing an attendee list via Zoom. At the end of the semester, if you had absences, for some classes you also needed to submit an absence report with documents explaining and/or excusing your absences (I only had one class that required this, so it may not be a standard procedure).