The Start of the Semester

August 3rd - 5th

The first day of classes was surreal. If I had been back home, I would have felt confident because I would have known what to expect, but instead I felt like a freshman all over again.

Quick list of surprising things in my first class - Korea and the US in the 20th Century
1. It is taught by an American.
2. All the students in the class are Americans, excluding four, and even they're exchange students.
3. I knew two people in the class (one from KU and one from orientation).
4. There were two other people from KU in the class.
I think I'm really going to enjoy the class, even if it is at 9 am on a Monday morning.

I really disliked my second class Modern Korean Society for a variety of reasons. The first one was the professor. First of all, he thought the world of himself as a professor, although I wasn't that bothered by it because I figured maybe it was because it was the first day and he was trying to earn our respect. Anyway, he then proceeded on asking us questions he himself didn't know the answer to necessarily just to tell us we were wrong. For example, he asked how many countries there were and one student offered up 300 and he said no, that it should be closer to 200 although he didn't know the precise number either. He asked what the population of Seoul was, to which I responded 10 million, and he corrected me saying 11 million (although I looked it up later and population estimates are between 9.5 - 10.5 million). But these questions also served no purpose. They just seemed like a way to prove that we knew nothing. He also said several things that bothered me in regards to South Korea. First off, he said that Korea wasn't small because if you combined the two countries, they would be in the top 10 list of countries by population. First off, this is a moot point because South and North Korea aren't one country. Second, combined they still don't make it into the top 10 because their combined population is 75-80 million and the number 10 slot is held by Japan with a population of 127 million. So by the time he started lecturing, I wasn't exactly impressed. Then, upon seeing the syllabus, the class was really hard gradewise based on what he expected from us. The midterm and final in total counted for 80% of our grade (40% each) with a 10 page paper (10%) and everything else for another (10%). That really unsettled me because I didn't find the professor's teaching style conductive to real learning and I don't want him deciding my grade when I don't share his opinions and he seemed to present his opinion as undeniable fact. Then, to compound on this mess Yonsei has a relative grading system for all classes in the Underwood College of Intl Studies with more than 10 students, letting only about 30-35% of the students get A's. This includes my Modern Korean Society class that has a class size of 15 people, meaning we're all competing for 5 A's (assuming the professor gives the maximum allowed). So by the end of class I was already considering dropping it and by the end of the next day I decided to for sure to drop it.

I want to sign up for Pre-Modern Korean History so that I'll be taking 15 hours, but right now the class is full. I'll try again during the next couple of days, but I don't know if I'll be able to. If not, I'll just take 12 hours this semester. If I get bored, I can do more volunteering or something. But for right now, I'm finding this tutoring to essentially consume as much time as an academic class. I tutor 4 hours a week (plus a 45 min commute each way), and I have to spend about another 4 hours a week prepping for it. I was really stressed out about whether or not I could manage everything, but dropping that class has made all that worry disappear. I also love tutoring the 8 year old girl. I met her for the first time last night (Tuesday) and she is both incredibly nice and intelligent. She's had English classes before, but forgotten almost all of it. I don't have to teach her from scratch though, so that's a relief.

There are two other classes I'm taking, Korean language and Comparative Study of East Asian Cinema, but I will talk about these later this week.