Recently the Newsweek, an American weekly magazine, revealed a list of world top 100 universities. Unfortunately, however, there was not a single Korean university on it. The evaluation standard was based on the number of published research papers per year, the ratio of foreign student admission, and the relationship with corporations and foreign university students. According to this magazine, Japan has 5 universities on the list, Singapore has 2, and Hong Kong has 2; however, Korea has none. Even though Korean parents are very enthusiastic at education, why is there no Korean university on the list?
At this stage, we would like to know how globalized Yeungnam University(YU) is and how much global standards can be applicable to YU.
YU runs a variety of international exchange programs up to the global world. They are the Exchange Students Program, the Window to the World Program, Work & Travel Programs, the Buddy Program, and the Global Study Program. First of all, the Window to the World Program was designed by students from the start. Its main purpose is to make students creative and future-oriented. Every semester, approximately 60 students are selected and the estimated budget for sending these student abroad is around 130 million won in 2006. It is available for students to apply for the funds every March and September, and selected students are financially supported.
The Buddy Program is a program for students to have connections with foreign exchange students and help each other. For one year, you can help a foreign exchange student to live well in Korea and learn new cultures from him or her. Sixty-one students are selected every year and they can get 1 point as service credit.
The Work & Travel is a program for students to have an experience through a part time job and English education in some certified facility in the US. It is also possible to have a six- to eight-week work experience and travel freely. The participating companies are famous theme parks, resorts such as LA Universal Studios, Bush Garden, Grand Canyon, Yosemite Valley, and Marina Hotel Resort. Students' tasks include food service, ride attendant duty, admissions, cashier duty, ticket sales, retail sales, and park service, and an applicant will be selected for one or two services.
The Foreign Exchange Student Program is a program offering education programs concerning languages and cultures in foreign universities which have a sisterhood relationship with our university. In this course, university tuition is free, but an applicant is responsible for his or her own lodging and air fare if he or she is registered in our school. This year alone, 99 students are selected for English speaking countries, Chinese speaking countries, Japan, and France.
The YU Global Study Program is a similar program with the Foreign Exchange Program. Its goal is to train global students through international education. Target countries are the US, China, and Japan. It has a number of programs from short language courses to regular courses. This program has a plan to send about 900 students to those countries with 1.2 billion won.
As explained above, our university has various international education programs more than other universities in this country. So far, 111 exchange students, 90 Global Study Program students, 81 Window to the World students, and 6 Work & Travel Program students have been dispatched to a number of countries in 2006. Moreover, our university has further a plan to send 1000 students abroad every year.
In the Global Study Program, 900 students are considered to be sent, but only half have been dispatched so far. Why are students so slow in participating in it? This is due to high standards of qualification. Only students having high qualifications can apply for this program, based on TOEIC or TOEFL scores. To apply these programs, an applicant must obtain more than 213 points in TOEFL and 3.0 credits. According to the Center for International Programs, however, in most cases students are not qualified for this program, so the participation rate is very low.
If so, what preparations showed students make to be qualified? To be honest, students seem to show only passive and short term effort in education, since they have grown up in that kind of society. In other words, they do not have any challenging spirit. The world is wide and there are much to learn abroad. If you are not just self-directed learning style, you cannot adapt yourselves to changes. Therefore, we would like to suggest that our students should participate in these international programs actively because the early bird catches the worm.
