At least I thought I was one of them until I came here. We are from the same country, speak the same language, and behave as equally. However, ever since the day I landed my first foot on this campus, my perception, of which I thought was a mutual thing between them and I, has slowly reached an odd unfamiliarity. Everything – the studies, the people, and almost nearly everything – was delicately different as if someone has cautiously manipulated my story in Jakarta to achieve the slightest distinction from what I will have experienced in the new campus. Perhaps I was an alien to this place.

I used to study at an international school in the heart of Indonesia, enjoying the multinationalism with friends from all over the globe, and embracing diversity was a concept that I have practiced throughout. One of the interesting cultures this nation owned was its openness to immigrants. The reason why Indonesia could bring about such atmosphere of unreserved relationship between diverse ethnicities was perhaps due to its geological trait: consisting of more than 17,000 islands with over 700 independent languages, it is necessary to embrace one another in order to form a strong community. Therefore, as a teenager who lived in such nation for 20 years, it was ordinary to accept new views and different thoughts from various backgrounds.

It was when academics brought me to Korea where my belief of admitting others was put to test. I am here at a campus which ranks one of the top academic reputations in the nation along with a history of more than a century. At my first year, I was so overwhelmed by the fact that I was accepted and used to be the first to approach new friends. I asked them tons of question regarding what they did, where they were from, and how they became interested in their majors. Reaching out to a totally new person was never an easy task for me, but learning and mingling into a community of people from the same but different background was an agenda I always wanted achieve when I would enter a Korean school. The new life that I was to face seemed to be enriched with diverse experiences and fresh perspectives, but as you may have expected, the “embrace” did not bounce back.

Although Korea University is one of the best in the nation, I feel that it lacks in understanding and providing adequate academics for immigrants and expatriates. The main problem stands especially in some classes where the syllabus and marking schemes for exams exactly follow that of Korean high schools. To elaborate, the questions mainly focus on how much a student can memorize – even the smallest unnecessary details – not on how much the student has understood or could apply the contents learned in class into real world issues. This, however, may not only be the issue for outsiders; what I personally believe is that simply eating up the whole textbook without understanding the logic behind the words is a study method that people like us find it difficult.

I do not mean to reproach the school or the people around, but if Korea University truly wants to praise about its numeric achievements regarding foreign students and international theses, it should first pay attention to bringing up the teaching standard to a universal level. I believe that I have done my job of approaching the first step towards them, and perhaps now it is their turn to give a warm hug back.

About the Author

Born in South Korea and raised in Indonesia, Seok Jun is a junior at the Department of Industrial Management Engineering in Korea University.