SNU Students to Choose Tutors
By Kang Shin-who
Staff Reporter
Korea’s top university is gearing up to introduce an interdisciplinary education program. Interdisciplinary or interprofessional education enables students to learn different viewpoints from other studies and emphasizes cooperation with other departments.
As a means to realize this, Seoul National University (SNU) plans to allow its freshmen and sophomore students to choose mentor professors regardless of their majors from 2008.
In the new system, engineering students can design their future plans and job careers with the assistance of professors of humanities studies, or students majoring in social studies can get counseling from professors in the department of natural sciences.
Also, the inter-professional education system is expected to produce a group of ``star professors.’’ However, the school will not allow more than 10 students to select a professor to prevent students from flocking to a popular faculty.
SNU students can study under their favorite professors for two years and the school plans to evaluate professors according to their achievement in coaching students. Through the new system, SNU also expects to form a close relationship between students and professors for better study and research.
Many of the world’s top universities today are encouraging their researchers to cooperate with other departments to get their students to study beyond their majors.
In an interview with The Korea Times last July, Duke University President Richard H. Brodhead stressed the importance of interdisciplinary education. ``The interaction between schools and departments offers students a remarkable opportunity to approach their studies from multiple perspectives,’’ Brodhead said.
Also, University of Alberta President Indira Samarasekera said that interdisciplinary study is important in order to foster global-minded students and there is a rapidly growing trend toward interdisciplinary teaching and research, plus emphasis on research at the undergraduate level.
``Students are starting to understand the concept and benefit of interdisciplinary research approaches, which is opening their eyes to entirely new areas of studies and opportunities to work collaboratively across a variety of disciplines,’’ she said.