Helping students realize potential

Students from the naval architecture and ocean engineering department at Dong-Pusan College make boats during their class at the campus in Busan. The department is one of the most popular vocational education curricula at the college. / Courtesy of Dong-Pusan College

Dong-Pusan College focuses on vocational education

Yoo Kyung-hwa, president of Dong-Pusan College

By Bahk Eun-ji

BUSAN — Dong-Pusan College (DPC), a school based in this southeastern port city, has honed its competitiveness by providing quality vocational education to its students.

“As a provincial college focusing on vocational education, we have aimed at nurturing students capable of performing their jobs well when they gain employment after graduation,” DPC President Yoo Kyung-hwa said in a recent interview with The Korea Times.

Yoo explained that despite being educated at technical colleges, recent graduates often need on-the-job training in order to properly adjust and settle into the work environment. Employers, according to her, find offering this training a burden, which explains the preference among some employers for people with work experience.

In order to bridge the gap between what employers want and the abilities of students, Yoo pledged to devote all her energy to train her students with a practical, up-to-date curriculum.

She is confident of bringing changes to the college after she was elected as its eighth president last December.

Dong-Pusan College was formerly Dongrae Women’s College, but the school was transformed into a coed school and given the new name Dong-Pusan.

Yoo is the school’s first female president since its inception 35 years ago. She said it is a great opportunity to show female leadership to the school as well as her students.

“There are three important factors to make a great college — confident students, competent professors, and decent school facilities offering an adequate educational environment,” Yoo said.

The president noted that her main task is to ensure that the three factors can be harmonized to achieve her goal.

“My goal as the college president is again to make students achieve their dream. DPC is not only the school where students will brush up their study but also the school helping them to pave their career,” Yoo said.

The school previously focused on health care and welfare, and business-related courses that catered only to female students. But after becoming a coed institution it has embraced a more dynamic curriculum such as shipbuilding and marine commercial diving departments.

She boasts of the Magic Entertainment Department, in particular, which is the only college department to train professional magicians both at home and abroad.

Yoo first came up with the idea of this department and pioneered its creation. She is passionate about promoting it as well as very proud of the students specializing in this unique major.

“DPC is the only school in the world with a magic department. This department offers an official magic curriculum designed to develop professional magicians. Students are allowed to learn to trick the eye and cultivate their social skills at the same time,” Yoo said.

Yoo encourages students to perform together in groups, although magicians usually perform alone.

“Students don’t like it first because they have a hard time working together with friends. However, I kept encouraging them to learn to perform together so that they use social skills when they perform magic,” Yoo said.

She also stressed that it is important to help students with character development to supplement their academic achievements.

In line with this vision, Yoo also has her students participate in voluntary programs for North Korean defectors that she has been conducting for eight years.

She has been holding a group wedding ceremony for North Korean defectors since 2010 when she was chief of the unification education center affiliated with the Ministry of Unification. DPC financially supports the ceremonies and provides goodwill support from faculty and students.

“The students are willing to participate in the event, and I also encourage them to join in, as part of learning how to help other people,” she said.

She noted that she wants her students to learn to be considerate and find joy in helping others during their college life.

Her other plan is to set out a long-term plan to innovate her school under the Education Ministry’s college restructuring program which is designed to cope with a decreasing number of students.

“Our motto for this year is ‘Innovation DPC 2018+.’ It is literally an innovation program of DPC in line with the government’s push for the restructuring of universities and colleges across the country,” Yoo said.