What courses did I take and how were they?

In this post I'm going to talk about my first impressions of the courses that I took at Chung Ang University. The courses that I chose were: Operations Management, Managerial Accounting, Business Communication, Management Information System and Elementary Korean. 

Before I go into the courses, let's talk about the things that I find unusual/interesting when it comes to university academic here in Korea.

1. Attendance is mandatory. If you are absent more than a specific times (usually four times) then you will automatically receive an F. 
2. First come and first serve when it comes to course registration. There are limited seats for every course. In my home university, everything is set up for us and we are guaranteed to take the courses. Here you have to choose the courses and register it yourself. And there is a chance that you won't be able to get a seat. 
3. Midterm and Final exams. I know that this is normal in the States and possible many other countries. However, I'm not used to this system because in my home university, you take 2~3 parallell classes in 2 months and then have one big exam for every course. 
4. The grading system. Each course has a different type of grading system depending on the language of the course (English or Korean). Generally, what grade you get depends on how well the other students did too. I know, it sounds a bit unfair. For example, after grading all of the students, the professor will rank the students from best score to worst. For courses taught in English, approximately 20~25% of the students will get A+/A, 50% get B/B+ and so on. Surprisingly, it is quite difficult to get an F here in Korea. You can only fail if you don't attend to the class at all. 
5. Student cards. In two of my courses, we had to write something called "student card" where we basically write down our name, major, personal interest, purpose of taking the course and a small self-introduction. This is so that the professors can get to know their students better and I think it's a nice gesture because it shows that they care about their students. 

Operations Management (Prof. Park Jeong Soo) 

This is one of the mandatory courses that I had to take in order to graduate in my home university. It was quite difficult to understand the professor due to his heavy accent but you get used to it after a while. Other than that, he was good at explaining and his examples were easy to relate to. The course has no assignments, only midterm and final exam. The exams are not that difficult, if you can memorize most of his handouts then you should be fine.

Managerial Accounting (Prof.  Park Soo Yeon) 

This is another mandatory course that I had to take. My first impression of Prof. Park was that she was strict (she didn't look strict though). Her English was much better than the professor in my Operations Management course and she seemed to have much knowledge about the subject that she teaches. This is one of the heavier courses for me, maybe because I wasn't really interested in the subject. The course has two quizzes, midterm and final exam. I was most stressed during this course's exams because there were many questions (25~30) and you have to solve them all in 1 hour and 15 minutes. 

One more interesting thing about this course is that you're not allowed to take pictures with your phone during class. The professor doesn't seem to like it, at all. 

Business Communication (Prof. Jan Vincent Galas) 

This course is definitely one of the easier courses and it's pretty fun too! On the first day of class, we got divided into small groups where we got to introduce ourselves and answered some questions. The purpose is to break the ice. It was quite difficult to speak with Koreans, not because of their English level but because they're all very shy and timid. I tried to be friendly with them but got no response back so it became pretty awkward. I think they might be very nervous speaking English and that is very understandable. I would also be very nervous of I had to speak in Korean haha. I'm sure their English is much better than my Korean though 😅. 

Anyway, unlike many other courses, this course does not have any midterm nor finals but only 3 quizzes and in-class assignments. The course is mainly about how to communicate (& writing skills) in English in the business world. Since this course has a lot of group work, it's a good way for you to get to know Korean students! They might seem shy at first, but after a while they will open up more.

Management Information System, MIS (Prof. Kang Sung Min)

This course is basically about how IT integrate in the business world. I don't have much to say about the course itself except that Prof. Kang seems to be pretty strict when it comes to time. He gives you exactly 5 minutes extra to arrive to class and if you still haven't arrived then you will be marked as late (2 late = 1 absent). He also enjoy talking about himself and his name for some reason lol. Other than that, he seems to be a very organized and structured person. The course itself doesn't have any personal assignment, only midterm and final exam. The exams contains T/F, short answer and multiple choice questions. 

Elementary Korean

At first I was enrolled in Intermediate Korean but when I went to that class the teacher spoke in Korean 70% of the time and she wasn't really good at English either. My Korean is very basic so it was quite difficult for me to follow in that class, I understood maybe 50~60% of that she's saying but decided to switch to Elementary Korean anyway. In Elementary Korean, you get to learn the basic of basics; Hangeul, how to count, how to ask simple questions, how to order in coffee shops and restaurants, etc. When reading the syllabus, I knew that this course was gonna be easy for me since I already know 90% of what we are going to learn. To be honest, I didn't want to study hard when I'm here in Korea so that was also the reason why I switched to Elementary Korean instead of taking Intermediate Korean (SHAME ON ME, i know.) 

My schedule for the whole semester.

As you can see, I was free on Fridays and only have two classes on most days which is pretty chill. It seems that me and my roommate are very lucky with our schedule since our other exchange friends all seem to have big gaps in their schedules. All in all, I was very satisfied with my schedule :)