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POSCO TJ Park Foundation
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Student Life In Yonsei University GSIS
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My name is Basidl. I am from Indonesia and a recipient of the Posco Asia Fellowship for Spring 2020. I have been in Seoul since February 17th, 2020. A week before my departure, it was important to research for updated information regarding South Korea (Covid-19 guidelines). I was concerned due to the infected numbers of the virus increasing daily. At the time, Indonesia did not have a record of suspected cases. Due to South Korea’s winter, it is important to come prepared for the cold. Now, I needed to prepare some things for Covid-19. I bought some boxes of masks and some personal medicine. I knew that the masks will be needed daily and are limited and decided to prepare in advance.
After completing the arrival form, I went to the arrival queue to obtain a stamp form from the arrival officers. This was my first experience to Covid-19 protocol implementation by keeping distance and always using provided hand sanitizer. After all documents and baggage were completed, I walked downstairs to the bus station and took 6011 bus to Yonsei Sinchon bus station. My first snow greeted me upon my arrival to Korea. In Indonesia, I always wore summer clothes because the weather is so hot. In Korea, however, I must wear man set and layered clothes. That day was snowy and my first winter experience. I have to do adapt to the weather, food, and time difference. My first initiative is to walk the area around the dorm to become familiar with the area. A second initiative is to take the public transportation as well as to install applications such as Naver Map, Subway apps, and the KakaoMap. A third initiative is to locate the convenience store to for daily needs, room equipment, and cellular number. From international student perspectives, it is important to understand the Korean culture and their daily activities. It was found that everything must be done quickly.
The most important aspect to me is language. Yonsei GSIS is full of English lectures, but for daily activities, Korean language is very important. Many foreigners are struggling with languages. It is better to take Korean courses in beginning of semester. The elective lectures is an option if you do not have a Korean language background. This is the reason why I took Korean language on first and second semester. Korean language lectures are bit different than other lectures because the classes were conducted twice a week (including the assignment and homework). In my opinion, language class will be better and more effective on offline class because we can learn directly and ask questions whenever there is an issue.
This spring semester 2021 will be my third semester. I remembered that on first semester, I obtained information from the Yonsei GSIS office that classes will be postponed for 2 weeks. This was done in order to wait for the latest update of the Covid-19 outbreak because it was uncertain if courses would be conducted online or offline. Unfortunately, this outbreak was becoming more prevalent and the university official decided to conduct all courses online. The offline courses were only for final exam, however, some courses were never offline. The final exam was the one and only chance to meet all fresh graduate students. For second semester, the university announced that the courses will be “Blended” between online and offline in the beginning of semester. The professor will decide what week that the class will be conducted online and offline. I had chance to meet one of professors to receive a book and to hold some discussions. This made me happy because I finally would have offline classes and not only for the final exam. Unfortunately, at the end of semester, the Covid-19 outbreaks were still high. After a second wave of Covid-19 caused greater numbers to be infected, it put the hopes of offline courses to an end. The university informed the students that all courses were to be changed to full online.
There has not been an offline university event due to Covid-19. All orientation events were conducted online and shared by email. This condition was out of my expectation. In my mind, I will have more friends from other countries and will have good discussions about recent world updates. The only way to meet other students were to hold an unofficial gathering. It was decided to meet for dinner or lunch. I found this interesting because we were all in one group project but had not officially met in person. We worked on the group project through an online meeting regularly. We did not, however, meet personally because some of students did their lectures from their countries. For students who already were in Seoul, the classes were participated from a dorm, library, or a coffee shop. It was also important to make sure the place has a good internet connection. This situation become difficult when there is a limitation number of people for gathering and all cafés and restaurants started to close at 9.00pm. Before the semester starts, we usually do discussion on what lectures will be taken and create a list of pros and cons. It is quite effective because we can be informed of the plus and minus of each lecture. It also includes the background of taking the courses. It allows for us to have a better understanding of a course than just what information is provided by the syllabus.
In relation to Yonsei GSIS, especially for master program, I try to explain it brief and concisely. Yonsei GSIS is taught fully in English with approximately 65% of the student body consisting of foreigners. For the first semester, there are some mandatory courses that must be taken (basic courses) such as Research & Design Methods, Statistics & Data Analysis, International Relations, and Introduction to International Economics. For a student who has taken those lectures in an undergraduate or graduate level program with grades B+ or above, they could apply for waiver and take another new course or concentration courses. The Yonsei GSIS consists of 4 semesters. The requirement for graduation is to complete 48 credit hours. This excludes the thesis which requires 42 credits including a Master thesis. Students may register for a maximum of 15 credits per semester. The maximum index is a 4.3 and to write the thesis, the students must have the minimum GPA 3.7/4.3. There are 3 master’s degree program in Yonsei GSIS. This includes Korean Studies, International Cooperation, and International Trade, Finance & Management. In every master’s degree, it has a field concentration, and the student must take minimum 4 courses of that field. To me, the benefit of GSIS is the ability to choose a course that will improve your skillset. There are some lectures which cover and review the global updates. For students who have work experiences, they can strengthen their knowledge and explore more about their field. Before going to take this master, I was working in a multinational company. It is considered a joint venture company between Korean and Indonesian company which located in Cilegon city, Indonesia. I was working in the Performance analysis team which has a main KPI (Key Performance Indicator) that maintains and analyzes the company performance and cost planning team which main KPI is costing and profitability analysis. Therefore, I decided to take International Trade, Finance & Management (ITFM) which focuses on Global strategy and management field. This is the main concentration and decided to add finance as complement or sub concentration. This is the following information about the Yonsei GSIS master’s program and field concentration as follows:
I took mandatory and elective courses for the first semester. I chose the elective courses of Korean language and communication for beginners as well as Analytical writing and presentation. In the second semester, I took Innovation and corporate transformation course. This course is about VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity) and its implication to businesses. We analyzed how strategy can be executed in business (such as Amazon, Netflix, Sales force, Apple). We also learned the high performing business by key themes/ topics/domain and its implication. The professor is a managing director of global business consulting. The professor taught from his experiences in business consulting on different ways to solve the company problem and give suggestions. Another lecture is International business law, this lecture is about international law and its impact to the business.
For the finance course, I took Global finance and corporate governance. This lecture is about understanding the connections between corporate governance and corporate performance by applying fundamental equity analysis. This lecture also reviewed about ESG (Environment, Social, Governance) issues and its affect to the company. In this course, among the individual elements of ESG, it focused on G. The G in ESG, governance is the internal system of practices, controls, and procedures that company adopts to govern itself, make value accretive decisions, and meet the requirements of stakeholders. This spring semester, I will take more management and finance lectures. These courses are Strategic management and global competition, Investment and risk management, Innovation and human capital. I wanted to take the lecture from other GSIS programs such as Seoul National University (SNU) GSIS, but I canceled it because all courses will be conducted online. Hopefully I have chance to take another GSIS class on my last semester.
This concludes the experiences from my first arrival in Sinchon, the difficulties during a year of online courses, and brief information about the GSIS field of concentration. Hopefully, the situation is becomes better and we can have offline class in the fall semester 2021. Thank you so much to the Posco TJ Park Foundation who always give support and attention to all Posco Asia Fellowship awardees. Stay safe and healthy everyone!