TRAVEL REPORT – SPRING 2016

YONSEI UNIVERSITY – SOUTH KOREA

539526

PREPARING FOR EXCHANGE

In general, the process to prepare for studying exchange in Yonsei is not very difficult; just follow

exactly the guideline from our Exchange service office and the host university. Basically, there are

two parts of application: submitting exchange application to Aalto exchange office and applying

to the host university. All of those submissions can be done online. After being admitted by the

University, I received official printed acceptance letter along with other necessary documents to

apply for Visa.

Some documents need to be prepared to apply D-2 Visa (Visa for college/ graduate students) are

- Application form : printed from the Korean Embassy’s site

- Documents from Aalto school: recommendation letter, proof that you are student from

Aalto, transcript is not mandatory.

- Documents from Yonsei (printed with stamp): acceptance letter, 2 other papers from the

University.

- Your documents: your passport, most recent passport photo, bank statement or explanation

of financial situation, valid resident permit with minimum 3 months before expired date

for those who are not Finnish.

The visa will be provided right after 1 week from submitting day. Normally, valid period of visa

is 4 months (basing on the studying period shown in acceptance letter). After immigrating to Korea,

foreigner have to apply for Alien Card. If you want to extend your staying, you can do it 1 month

before expiring date. In my situation, I forget to extend my visa and I overstayed 15 days. Then,

on the day I flight back to my country, I had to go directly to immigration office within Incheon

airport to apply the extending document.

HOW TO MAKE YOUR CHOICE

When studying exchange, making the right choice is somehow important since we don’t have time

to redo it. First of all is about choosing the school. The all three Universities: Seoul National,

Korean, and Yonsei are top 3 Universities in South Korea, which are called SKY. Therefore,

studying in any of those uni. is good. However, Yonsei has the best location, which is right at

Sinchon and very closed to Hongdae and Ihdae- the famous areas for students. Also, this program

is very international that around 40% of students are foreigners from all around the world.

Another thing to consider before going to exchange is about accommodation. There are two

options: dormitory and living out of school.

For the dorm, you have to 1) stay within strict timeline and cannot extend any day 2) pay the whole

rent in advance 3) prepare for the tb test to get into the dorm, without this report, you cannot take

the key. However, this solution is the easiest and safeties way. Also, you can stay closed to other

exchange and degree student of the class and the rent is very low.

In my case, I chose to stay out of school to 1) experience student’s lifestyle in Korea. I chose

Goshiwon type, which is 4m2 room, share bathroom and kitchen with others people. I like this

type because 2) the check-in and out time is very flexible, 3) this is the cheapest rent 4) the

manager take care of all cleaning in common area 5) there are place to cook with free rice, kimchi,

bread, etc. People also can find another type of accommodation to stay in bigger area with higher

price (from 400-700 US dollars). Notice that most of owners require huge amount of deposit and

you need to speak Korean to deal with them. Staying closed to school is VERY RECOMMENDED

because you will spend many time at school for meeting and group work. Otherwise, Sinchon is

convenient to get subway and travel to other parts of the city.

EXCHANGE STUDY

The term will start from beginning of September to 22nd December. Orientation will be held 1

week before the first class. The whole semester including 2 modules, most courses are taught in

one module and few of courses for first year student taught during the whole semester.

There are several courses from this Global MBA program which are suitable to everyone. As what

I understand, graduate student only allow to take graduate level. Maximum credit exchange student

can take is 19.5 credit (minimum requirement is 12). Students can register many courses in the

beginning of each module. Unlike Aalto’s policy, we have to drop the class officially from the

system within 1 week from the first class. Otherwise, we have to submit printed form with sign

from professor.

All of the courses are taught in English and majority of classmates are foreigners also. Therefore,

I found no difficulty to study there in term of communication. Most courses include presentation,

class discussion and group works, which I think more practical than our program in Aalto.

From my experience, even though most courses are interesting, you shouldn’t take more credit

then you are required to do since the workload is really stressful. If there are intensive courses such

as Marketing in Japan, you should consider to take to have more free time later. Courses for second

year students are worth to take because they are less stressful, less theory and more in class

discussion.

Besides, there are language courses to take including Korean, Japanese and Chinese. Those courses

cannot taken into account for degree student but we are, as exchange student, can use maximum 4

credits for our study.

Global Business Strategy – MBG6114 – Graduate – 1.5 credits – Prof. Pak Yong Suk

Generally, this is case study-based course which includes several cases from HSB. Each week, one

topic from the cases will be presented by one chosen group. After that, we will have in-group

discussion and class discussion about this topic basing on the case and several supplement readings.

Besides, we are also required to write case analysis and summary report of those supplement

readings.

This course is very interesting since students are free to discuss, analyze the case and share their

own experience and stories relating to the topic. At the end, the final examination includes essay

questions, discussing about topic we presented in class. Personally, I found disadvantage of this

course is that the quality mostly depends on students because professors delivered little knowledge,

he only raised questions for us to discuss. Sometime, we wasted lots of time when he lets the flow

go too far that we cannot recognize his real expectation.

Marketing Management – MBG6309 – Graduate – 3 credits - Prof. Chang Dae Ryun

The workload of this course is high. This is whole semester course which is taught over 2 modules.

There are midterm exam and final exam, requiring lot of studying from his lectures, textbook and

the professor’s book also. Besides, we have to do group work including exercise in every class, 2

cases analysis reports and 1 final presentation. However, if we do homework and exercise carefully

and understand his lectures, the exams are very easy to gain high score.

The interesting point of this course is the presentation of each group because we have change to

understand about different business and ideas. If someone is keen on marketing, you really should

take this class because the lectures are very focus, especially on local customer behavior. The

professor provided us lots of useful information such as the comparison between Korean market

and Western style, the new trends of marketing in Asian market as well as creative ideas of Korean

companies.

Statistic for Business – MBG6101 – Graduate – 1.5 credits – Prof. Kim Seong Moon

The content of this course is the basic knowledge of statistic and decision marking in uncertainty.

The workload is simple, including some assignments which are done in group, midterm test and

final test. For business student, this course is very family and easy. I don’t really like this course

because it doesn’t cover necessary knowledge about statistic. The professor focused too much on

Probability and didn’t have time to teach the test and hypothesis.

Career Foundation – MBG8000 – Graduate – 1.5 credits - Prof. Choi Sun Mee

I strongly recommend this course for you to take whether you want to know about Asian/ Korean

labor market or not. The whole course include 8 guest lectures and we are only required to write

report after each class. There are many lecturers who have high position from big company such

as Hyundai, Marsh & McLennan, L’Oreal Korea, Deutsche Bank Korea, KOBBIT, etc. They gave

motivation talks about building career and personality, managing stress in work, balancing

multicultural pressure in global company and even the startup life, etc. From their talks, I earn lots

of useful information to apply into my future job as well as understand the real situation of Korean

labor market and working condition and culture.

Consultant action project – MBG7509 – Graduate -3 credits

This is my un-expected achievement when I study here because I won the contest which brought

me large amount of money. For this course, we have to work directly with client during a whole 3

months for the real consultant project. We are divided into groups and fight one each other to win

the final biding. During 3 months, we worked closely together with lots of research to create

innovative idea for our client. Each week, we had to present our work to them and got feedback to

improve the final idea. From this course, I learned the real working style of Korean people and

understood how competitive of business condition in South Korea.

You should think carefully to take this course because this is very hard and stressful. It take us the

whole semester and we cannot drop out or gave up in the middle. Many degree students decided

to drop the course at the beginning. However, it is worth for me to take because this is the chance

to test my knowledge and ability as well as gain the real experience beyond in-class project.

Leadership – MBG751 – Graduate – 1.5 credit – Prof. Jung Dong IL

This is interesting course I recommend too. This course covers knowledge about how to build

leadership by learning from other success business leaders. We also have to read suggested case

studies and have a group presentation about one business leader. The special assignment of this

course is the leadership development paper basing on MLQ test. Doing this paper, students have

chance to evaluate themselves as well as get feedback from others in term of leadership.

FREE TIME AND OTHER INFORMATION

The first impression in South Korean is that the people are very nice, friendly and helpful. Korean

service is one of the best in the world that they truly serve from the bottom of their heart. So, just

ask and they will try their best to support you. However, Korean people are not very good at

English. Hence, a little knowledge of Korean is really helpful for you buy stuff or travel around.

In big city as Seoul, speaking Chinese can help for shopping.

Cost of living:

The majority of living expense is for accommodation which is very high: In dorm, it is around

$400-500 and is about $250-750 off-campus, depending on type and quality. If you want to stay

off-campus as I did, you really should visit the place in person first, or at least have someone help

you to check the room, especially the Goshiwon type. There are three types of accommodation:

Goshiwon – the cheapest one- is similar to dorm which include 20 (or more) small rooms with

enough furniture. Depend on the price, there are window, inside bathroom or TV. Another type is

living with host, which offers much bigger room and daily meals. For those benefit, the price is

not more expensive than other choices. Except party at home, you are free to do anything by your

interest. The last one is one-room accommodation which is similar to studio in Finland. Some are

well equipped but most of them just have basic stuffs.

Besides, all other expenses in South Korea are very low including food, transportation, clothes and

cosmetic, etc. There are so many 24 hours restaurants, coffee shops and convenient stores

everywhere that you don’t have to worry about food and beverage. The nightlife in Seoul is very

dynamic and active. Some of my friends usually go to Itaewon to enjoy western style party; many

local people go to bars/ clubs in Gangnam and Hongdae.

Entertainment:

There are several types of entertainment in Korea you can enjoy. Around Sinchon and Hongdae,

there are many young people show street performances such as singing, dancing, magic show, etc.

The K-music concert is what Korea most famous for. The flea markets are operated almost every

weekend, in which you can buy clothes or handmade souvenirs and stuffs. Also, there are such a

place with video games along streets.

Nore-bang or Karaoke is one of the must try activities in Korea. This is a place for group of people

to sing together. You can choose the song you like in the list and the sing with lyric and music

shown on the screen. This kind of service is very popular, hence, the room usually well equipped

with tools for you to sing and play.

Jimjibang, in another hand, is a place for people to enjoy family-like atmosphere. This is Korean

style sauna. At the first time I came, I was shocked when people go to sauna room with clothes.

But then I realize that most people go there not for sauna but for group activities. Jimjijang is open

through the night and some people go there, instead of hostel, to sleep. The area serves food, PC

game, computer, chess, karaoke and capsule place to sleep together with sauna and hot spring.

Traveling

It is very easy to travel in South Korea thanks to the convenient transportation system and useful

tourism information service. Try to learn some basic sentences and the alphabet to read Korea,

then you can travel to anywhere you want.

There are subway in every big city; local buses go to every corner of the country, taxi and cross-

region buses are available everywhere. With the T-money card, you can pay for all of above

transportations. Travelling to other cities, you can use airplane or train also. Just google it, you can

find bunch of clear instruction for this.

I had a long backpack trip around Korea through such cities as Busan, GyeongJu, Gwangju,

Daejeon, Suwon, Danyang. Busan is the famous beach city with many tourist attractions like

Haeundae beach, Beomeosa temple, Taejongdae and UN memorial park. Once you come to Busan,

you must try the seafood which is very fresh and delicious with reasonable price ($20 per person).

This city is as developed as Seoul that you can have any comfort as you want. Gyeongju, in contrast,

is the history area with lot of heritage from Korean ancient. Daejeon is well-known city of

technological university, collection and museum. When you travel around Korea, save more to

visit museum to understand their unique culture, history and mindset. I was very surprised because

most of national museums are target to family and children. There are places for kids, attractive

explanation and interaction area for children also.

From South Korea, it is very convenient to travel to other Asia countries. Many of my friends

traveled to Japan, Taiwan, HongKong and South East Asia during their exchange.

FINAL COMMENTS

I would strongly recommend South Korea, especially Yonsei University to other students.

Studying there, you will experience totally different lifestyle comparing Finland’s. For studying

purpose, you can improve yourself a lots since the program is practical, international and dynamic.

You can make friend and work with many people from different countries. For culture experience,

Korea has very unique culture with lot of interesting thing for you to explore. And, there are always

new thing for you every day. Also, Korea is the heaven of beauty, fashion and cosmetic for both

man and woman.

The most important thing I have learned from this exchange is how to manage the stress and keep

it at suitable level. In Aalto, our studies are flexible that we can choose whatever we want. If there

are too much works, we are freely to drop at any time. Moreover, we even can retake the tests and

the courses. However, studying in Korea is not that flexible. Students are “forces” to take

mandatory classes with fix schedule, along with other school and social activities. Because of the

competitive environment, students have to work hard and study hard to get high score. Also, they

have to handle social activities to improve the network and their competencies. Even though I

didn’t need high score, I had to work hard to reach team expectation because all of them need score

and recognition from professor. At the beginning, I got shock because of those pressure. Then

when I got used to this, I found myself much more improved. I learnt lot of knowledge, found out

my weakness and knew how to work with multinational team members. Understanding Asian

culture and working style is the most valuable thing I gain. From this, I can compare my own

culture, the Asian one, to the Western style which help me to adapt better for my future job. I

would like to say Korea is the best place for seft-training and practicing.

PICTURES

Yon-ko;jeon: the yearly sport event of Yonsei Univerusty against Korea Univeristy.

Family in Hanbok during Chuseok festival – at Hanok tradition village

Hangang river at night

Busan seafood market

Unlimited Bibimbab at local market in Gwangju

Traditional local grocery store