Consisting of “kkul,” the Korean word for honey, and the noun “tip,” as in helpful information, the portmanteau kkultip* refers to sweet, helpful advice that can be useful for people, especially in certain situations or environments. Kkultips exist in and guide students through university campus life as well. University kkultips allow students to skip over the time-consuming process of trial and error and arrive directly at the best lectures, restaurants, and school programs. This information is usually verbally shared within student groups, which can make it hard to attain. To resolve this issue, the website KU Polarbear (hereafter referred to as Polarbear) now archives numerous kkultips from different areas, which will be particularly helpful to students excluded due to limited interpersonal relationships, and during this non-face-to-face era caused by the pandemic.
Polarbear is a website designed by Korea University (KU) seniors in a web page developing team of the same name to help freshmen through the early stages of their school life. Through the website, students can get a glimpse of the campus and its buildings, learn which mobile applications are crucial for KU students to gain information, and become familiar with popular restaurants and efficient studying methods.
A Collection of KU-Related Information
When the website is accessed, the main page pops up with the title of the service and a short, concise description of what it is. Down the page, there are five images, each representing an area of university life. By clicking on them, you can view information related to that area that Polarbear provides. Two reporters at The Granite Tower(GT) and few other students took it upon themselves to explore the webpage for readers. The consensus was that the website was well-organized and visually refined, making it user-friendly. “The website is full of information that freshmen would be interested in, but the school does not offer,” stated a reporter, referring to how the website cleanly organized information that could have been deemed obvious or was randomly dispersed, letting the students tune into the useful information. Also, Park Joo-young (’19, Department of Life science) mentioned that the content was very honest and being helpful, it really felt like things that a senior would say at a Babyak.
The five areas of school life the website delves into are campus buildings, must-know mobile applications and websites for students, kkultips about various useful systems at school, nearby restaurants, and useful tips for studying at KU. The campus buildings category introduces the structures on KU campus, suggesting spots where students can study alone or together in groups. The studying at KU category suggests beneficial online platforms such as the Korean Massive Open Online Course (K-MOOC) and the Korea Open Course Ware (KOCW), which are free online lecture platforms. Also introduced in this category are the KU Peer Tutoring (KUPT) program and the academic coaching program, both programs that the school offers for free but students are not familiar with. As such, the website provides kkultips to boost users’ academic growth.
The apps and website category presents various apps and websites that convenience students in their general KU life, such as Koreapas, Klue, KUchive, the home page of the Career Development Center and more. It also closely aids students in their school studies by sharing a list of websites that would help them carry out assignments; websites on where to access research papers, statistical data, and free vector icons for visual presentations are provided.
Additionally, nearby restaurants are sorted and tagged. For example, some are labeled as adequate for eating alone at, while others are recommended for babyak - a Korean shorthand for a meal with a social exchange component. KU Polarbear goes even further to mention the best bars to go to and the best desserts to try depending on the situation.
Polarbear’s Merits and Flaws
Even the most widely known and used services such as Google do not stop receiving criticism and consequently undergoing updates. Polarbear is not an exception, and especially as a newly established service, there are several respects that could be improved. For instance, the images on the main page are hyperlinks to pages about each of the five themes; however, the images can be seen as not explanatory enough, nor are they labeled with the category name. Therefore, it was pointed out that it would be difficult for users to navigate themselves throughout the website, seeing that it is challenging to recognize exactly which category one is about to access.
The website’s accessibility could also be increased by making an English version of it available. If this change were to be made, it would very much help Polarbear developers achieve their goal of truly helping students as it would quickly increase the potential pool of users. Moreover, that pool would include international students who could not attain kkultips at sources that exclusively use Korean due to a language barrier.
Fortunately, users can point out these discomforts to the system operator. The website accumulates feedback actively – by providing a link to a feedback-receiving Google Form at the bottom of the main page. The feedback form indicates a bright future for KU Polarbear because it shows that it endeavors to grow.
Despite its current weaknesses, Polarbear has a significant upper hand over other kkultip services for KU students: it archives information of different areas on a single platform. Services such as Klue and sofo give kkultips in their respective areas of lectures, restaurants, and more, but Polarbear encompasses all areas. “In the past, I have arduously strived to accumulate information that would be useful for me. Now, with Polarbear, the information is assembled in one website, which is really convenient,” stated Lee Jin Gyo (’19, Department of French Language and Literature).
Besides, Polarbear has been created as a website, allowing it to be constantly updated. Although very helpful, previous student-made kkultip collections such as the yearly documents provided by the Facebook page KU Howling could not be updated until the next publication date. The website also has the merit of being friendly. “The Polarbear service is more friendly, owing to the fact that the descriptions are in a warm tone, as if a senior is sitting next to me and explaining,” explained a reporter.
Polarbear is indeed a useful website to KU students because it organizes and archives kkultips of various areas for students to make use of efficiently. By learning kkultips, KU students, most notably freshmen, will hopefully cross the threshold from having a mindset of an outsider to feeling a sense of belonging at KU, and wholeheartedly enjoy campus life.