By Kang Shin-who
Staff Reporter
If Seoul National University (SNU), Korea's most prestigious state-run university, wants to go global, it should start with its current foreign students.
And not just foreign students studying there on a permanent basis, but also an exchange student who is about to finish his one-year stint at SNU, who says that there are more than a couple of things the school can improve on.
The student, while writing a paper, had the chance to interview SNU staff members, international students, and some Korean students. He talked to The Korea Times about what he found on the condition of anonymity (and that any photo of him is altered to protect his identity).
``One of my conclusions is that SNU is behind when it comes to globalization compared to the top schools of other countries,'' he said during an interview.
First of all, many foreign students pointed out that administration officials at the university are unable to communicate in English and their behavior leaves much to be desired, he said.
In his paper, he quoted a Swiss student as telling him, ``The lack of interest from the Office of International Affairs (OIA) towards exchange students makes life very uncomfortable. They do not have any multicultural sensitivity, whereas they are really demanding on exchange students. They are expecting every exchange student to be fluent in Korean, but OIA officials don't seem trying to reach out to us.''
A student from France was quoted as saying, ``It is impossible to communicate with the administration as no one speaks English and there is an apparent lack of communication between departments.''
The research paper said, ``A lot of exchange students don't send nice reports about SNU to their home institution so the risk is that the reputation of the university will not be good internationally.''
Additionally, some other international students are complaining about the poor Korean language programs run by the university.
A German student said, ``It is a shame that we have to pay for Korean courses organized by SNU ― 270,000 won is too much money.''
An Italian student, quoted in the paper, noted that if she had friends considering studying in Korea, she would not recommend SNU to them.
The paper observed that SNU is running its English-only lectures ``inefficiently,'' noting that some Korean students who don't speak English participate in English lectures anyway and disrupt the flow of class.
``Some Korean students think that exchange students are generally not as dedicated to studying as them because they are far away from home and don't worry about studying as much as they do,'' the author said.
He continued, ``I disagree. We want to study but our scope of choice is very limited, as there are few interesting courses offered in English. The result is that we don't take courses that we want to.''
In addition to this, SNU is being criticized for its lack of respect toward the culture of foreign students. ``The fact that SNU refused to provide halal food and a room to pray for Muslim people living at the dormitory is a scandal. How can they make no efforts for international students and not respect their religion and beliefs?'' a Spanish student said.
SNU didn't respond to The Korea Times' inquiry regarding the concerns of the exchange students.