Life, study and work in Korea. Major studies.
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One of the Electrical Engineering & Computer Science Department buildings where i study
I decided to write in English from today, coz my English-speaking friends told me they also wanted to read. Anyway, I guess no difference for my Russian friends, since they know English well.
Last Friday there was my last thesis defense and I wanted to sum up the pros, cons, and my thoughts about the master’s program I studied here in Korea. I said “last defense” because unlike in Russia I had to defend twice: 1st time in front of my adviser, second - in front of 2 other professors who were in my defense committee. That happened coz students have to arrange the date and venue for their defense themselves according to the schedule of the 3 professors who have to be in the committee. And in my case it was difficult to find the time when all 3 profs could come to the defense, so finally my adviser offered to split the one defense into two. Let me first put u in the picture of study process
I got to Seoul National University through Samsung program, called GSP-SNU (smth like Global Scholarship Program, still not sure=) for students majoring in the field of electrical engineering, which is fairly quite wide. The program is a master’s course. Scholarship is paid every month half by Samsung half by SNU, totally 1000000 won, which is abt $1000. But not really regularly. I mean at least while I was studying there were a lot of delays up to 2 months, and sometimes we would call and ask Samsung managers or SNU administration about any tentative date when the scholarship would be transferred.
The study process can be divided into 2 parts: research at lab and study of major subjects. Master student has to be tied to some lab in SNU and do some research under his/her adviser. Actually major subjects are not necessary to be strictly related to ur major, u can study whatever u want (unless ur adviser demands u to take his course), but u must take at least 3 courses (if I remember correct) offered by the department of Electrical Engineering. And there is a certain number of credits u have to in 4 semesters. Usually all the credits can be gained in 2 semesters, if research at lab doesn’t keep u very busy. In my case for the 1st semester I didn’t do any research at all, just attended lectures, did hw, but even without research it was pretty tough. I took 2 courses for graduate students and 1 for undergrads. Graduate courses usually involve lectures twice a week, hw, quizzes, midterm and final exams, and a course project.
Lectures are supposed to be in English if there is any foreigner student registered for the course. However sometimes English of some professors is hard to understand. But never ever say that to anyone who can tell ur words to the professor u r talking abt. It was actually one of my biggest mistakes here. We were talking with my adviser and I felt like I could trust him, so I was just clearly expressing my real thoughts and mentioned that I couldn’t understand English of one prof he was friends with. May be I told English of that prof was awful, I don’t remember exactly. But in the end of semester I’ve got very bad final score in the course taught by that prof despite any logical expectations. And prof didn’t explain me the reason for that score, even after I asked him 3 times. I can’t say that it’s 100% sure that prof got to know my words estimating his English-communicative skills and decided to punish me somehow. But I can’t think of any other “logical” reason for such a bad score. So better keep ur own opinion with yourself. Btw the scoring system here is …mmm… comparison-based? I’m trying to say that the scores of students taken the same course are related to each other. Each student has a rating which is converted into a course final score. Maximum rating is 100%. and the highest score is A+ which is given to one or 3 students with the highest rating in the class, depending on prof’s preferences. No matter how hard u studied, if ur quiz, midterm and final’s ratings are low than other’s student’s ratings u’ll get worse score. This is actually a problem. Coz sometimes profs give so difficult problems for exams that they can hardly solve it themselves. The level is like whole-Russian Olympiads. Again it’s not for every course, but sometimes. So, say for example, I studied hard, I know the subject well, I understand the lectures, but I failed my exams because the problems can’t be solved by simply knowing the subject and require a lot of experience in solving such kind of problems, therefore I get C instead of A, because someone exam’s score was better than mine. It’s may be even more unfair if we consider that PhD and master students study together. If PhD student has more experience he’ll get better rating than master student, right?
Another feature of educational system here (compared to Russian one) is that there is no one period for exams in the end of the semester. There are exams throughout the semester: midterms and finals. So u have to study hard in order to understand everything during the semester, not after, like in Russia:) To graduate students have to meet some formal requirements. Safety technique and sexual harassment courses are obligatory, however, completely useless. First they were offered in Korean, and foreigners who don’t know Korean didn’t understand anything at all, just randomly chose the answers in the tests and passed it eventually. Also Koreans and foreign students from non-English-speaking countries have to take TEPS - Test of English Proficiency. The stupid thing is that no one usually explains the rules of the test in English, only in Korean. So when I took my test I could hardly understand anything and filled in the registration blanks after several attempts. Also I did some mistakes in the test itself due to my unawareness of the rules. Actually the test is simple and there is no need to worry or specially prepare for it if u feel confident in everyday life communication in English, but the disorganization itself always disappoints me.
That’s all about major studies. Next entry will be about studying Korean - the most positive thing in the education process for me here:)
One of the Electrical Engineering & Computer Science Department buildings where i study
I decided to write in English from today, coz my English-speaking friends told me they also wanted to read. Anyway, I guess no difference for my Russian friends, since they know English well.
Last Friday there was my last thesis defense and I wanted to sum up the pros, cons, and my thoughts about the master’s program I studied here in Korea. I said “last defense” because unlike in Russia I had to defend twice: 1st time in front of my adviser, second - in front of 2 other professors who were in my defense committee. That happened coz students have to arrange the date and venue for their defense themselves according to the schedule of the 3 professors who have to be in the committee. And in my case it was difficult to find the time when all 3 profs could come to the defense, so finally my adviser offered to split the one defense into two. Let me first put u in the picture of study process
I got to Seoul National University through Samsung program, called GSP-SNU (smth like Global Scholarship Program, still not sure=) for students majoring in the field of electrical engineering, which is fairly quite wide. The program is a master’s course. Scholarship is paid every month half by Samsung half by SNU, totally 1000000 won, which is abt $1000. But not really regularly. I mean at least while I was studying there were a lot of delays up to 2 months, and sometimes we would call and ask Samsung managers or SNU administration about any tentative date when the scholarship would be transferred.
The study process can be divided into 2 parts: research at lab and study of major subjects. Master student has to be tied to some lab in SNU and do some research under his/her adviser. Actually major subjects are not necessary to be strictly related to ur major, u can study whatever u want (unless ur adviser demands u to take his course), but u must take at least 3 courses (if I remember correct) offered by the department of Electrical Engineering. And there is a certain number of credits u have to in 4 semesters. Usually all the credits can be gained in 2 semesters, if research at lab doesn’t keep u very busy. In my case for the 1st semester I didn’t do any research at all, just attended lectures, did hw, but even without research it was pretty tough. I took 2 courses for graduate students and 1 for undergrads. Graduate courses usually involve lectures twice a week, hw, quizzes, midterm and final exams, and a course project.
Lectures are supposed to be in English if there is any foreigner student registered for the course. However sometimes English of some professors is hard to understand. But never ever say that to anyone who can tell ur words to the professor u r talking abt. It was actually one of my biggest mistakes here. We were talking with my adviser and I felt like I could trust him, so I was just clearly expressing my real thoughts and mentioned that I couldn’t understand English of one prof he was friends with. May be I told English of that prof was awful, I don’t remember exactly. But in the end of semester I’ve got very bad final score in the course taught by that prof despite any logical expectations. And prof didn’t explain me the reason for that score, even after I asked him 3 times. I can’t say that it’s 100% sure that prof got to know my words estimating his English-communicative skills and decided to punish me somehow. But I can’t think of any other “logical” reason for such a bad score. So better keep ur own opinion with yourself. Btw the scoring system here is …mmm… comparison-based? I’m trying to say that the scores of students taken the same course are related to each other. Each student has a rating which is converted into a course final score. Maximum rating is 100%. and the highest score is A+ which is given to one or 3 students with the highest rating in the class, depending on prof’s preferences. No matter how hard u studied, if ur quiz, midterm and final’s ratings are low than other’s student’s ratings u’ll get worse score. This is actually a problem. Coz sometimes profs give so difficult problems for exams that they can hardly solve it themselves. The level is like whole-Russian Olympiads. Again it’s not for every course, but sometimes. So, say for example, I studied hard, I know the subject well, I understand the lectures, but I failed my exams because the problems can’t be solved by simply knowing the subject and require a lot of experience in solving such kind of problems, therefore I get C instead of A, because someone exam’s score was better than mine. It’s may be even more unfair if we consider that PhD and master students study together. If PhD student has more experience he’ll get better rating than master student, right?
Another feature of educational system here (compared to Russian one) is that there is no one period for exams in the end of the semester. There are exams throughout the semester: midterms and finals. So u have to study hard in order to understand everything during the semester, not after, like in Russia:) To graduate students have to meet some formal requirements. Safety technique and sexual harassment courses are obligatory, however, completely useless. First they were offered in Korean, and foreigners who don’t know Korean didn’t understand anything at all, just randomly chose the answers in the tests and passed it eventually. Also Koreans and foreign students from non-English-speaking countries have to take TEPS - Test of English Proficiency. The stupid thing is that no one usually explains the rules of the test in English, only in Korean. So when I took my test I could hardly understand anything and filled in the registration blanks after several attempts. Also I did some mistakes in the test itself due to my unawareness of the rules. Actually the test is simple and there is no need to worry or specially prepare for it if u feel confident in everyday life communication in English, but the disorganization itself always disappoints me.
That’s all about major studies. Next entry will be about studying Korean - the most positive thing in the education process for me here:)