Since I have been away for so long (42 years!), I find quite interesting to see how they do things somewhat differently from what I am accustomed to in the States. Let me summarize a number of observations I have made since I got back.
- Korea does not have summer time
- The faculty of Korean universities are paid 12 months and therefore, the faculty are expected to come to school during the summer vacation but not many people here at SK university are seen on campus now.
- Before I submitted my final grade, I was reminded that I had to follow certain guidelines: A+ to A: less than 30%; A+ to B: less than 70%; C+ to F: more than 30%; Students who have missed more than 1/4 of the class get automatically an F. These rules apply to undergrad as well as graduate students. For my freshmen class, the distribution went as follows: A+ to A: 20%; B+ to B: 36.6%; C+ to F: 43.3% (F: 10%)
- People here think that people in the States spend too much time talking before an action. For example, we spend hours and hours in series of meetings but ended up doing the kind of things that have been expected to do all along. Why do we spend so much time talking? Why don’t we just do it and show the results? They have very little meetings here.
- The admission to each department is fixed: For example, most of engineering departments admit 40 students each year.
- Every faculty member teaches 3 courses a semester. (I teach only one course since I am not a tenured faculty.)
- Many of faculty members do not come to school everyday – This may not be any different but I feel this is strange.
- Students pay a fixed amount of tuition regardless of credit hours they take. On average, they pay about $4000-5000 per semester for private universities and about half of this for public universities.
- Graduate students get tuition exempted in most cases.
- Korea has a rainy season which sometimes lasts for a month. This means that it will rain on and off for a long period of time just like in Oregon and Washington.
- You pay at least $250 for a game of golf no matter where you play.
- Marriage ceremony costs easily $20,000-$30,000 for average parents. We have been to two of them already and confirmed that this is true.
- The average price of house of about 1200 sq ft in Seoul costs about $1 million or more.
- Subway transportation is free for 65 or older people. (I don’t get this benefit since I am a foreigner which is reasonable.)
- Colon test costs for only $100 compared to about $2000-3000 in the US but the quality of the test is as good.
- Beef stake costs about $100 compared to about $20 in Rapid City.
- The overhead for a research grant in universities is only 7-10 %.
- Whatever (I mean everything, grocery, meals, medical expenses, movies, etc.) you purchase will be automatically tax deducted as long as you use a credit card to pay for it. When you use the card, this will be reported to the government instantaneously. This way, merchants cannot cheat the government on tax.
Korea has about 150 universities for the population of about 45 million ( South Korea ). These universities had rooms for 80,000 freshmen this year but only 40,000 came. In 20 years from now, there will be only 20,000 students who will apply to universities. This is due to the fast decline in population. Young couples these days prefer only one child compared to 4-5 children 10-20 years ago. In addition, many young people do not wish to get married.
I feel like I have been dead for 40 years, suddenly woke up, and saw things around me looked quite different. I see a lot of things have changed by and large for the better, some dramatically and others slowly. All in all, it has been an interesting experience for me and I trust that there will be more things that will surprise me as my journey continues.
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