So with less than 2 weeks coming up and finally being done with all the dang projects I've been having the past weeks, I think it's time to introduce you to my university: Kyung Hee University (KHU). Yes, after 3,5 months I think it's time.

Pictures are made during fall, which left me a few weeks ago to made way for the freezing cold (I'm talking FREEZING cold). Fall has turned my already gorgeous campus into an amazing korean drama setting with amazing colors. I never truly appreciated fall since in the Netherlands it mostly means rain, and dirty brown leaves. However, here in Seoul it maybe rained for 5 days in total and the vibrant colors stayed atleast for 1,5 month. They have a word for the change of colors during the fall called "Dan Poong". My friend, Trisha, told me that it describes how the colors of the leaves change and spread as paint spreads when it touches a wet paper. Can we get a hooray for beautiful Korean words? I truly fell for fall while I was here. (pun intended).

Das rite, we have a little lake.

So pretty much all of the universities in Seoul have a gorgeous campus. One more beautiful than the other. Quite different from what I'm used to. No campuses, just school buldings. So with schoolcampuses comes school pride. Yes, I love it. Everyone is wearing KHU merchandise each different from their department. I have class in two different departments (thus buildings): Department of Business Administration and the Department of Hotel and Tourism Management.
Mentioning school pride, in September we had this school festival. So every university has a school festival where studentes perpare stands where you can eat, the school provides performances from k pop artists (yes I got to witness the K-Pop madness), and people perform everywhere.



As far as bulidings and facilities go, they have everything. A beautiful library, a music hall that is used once in a while, a beautiful management building, a fountain (yes, a fountain), hills (Kyung Hee might be the only one that specializes in that), a postoffice, a hospital in front, KHU bookstore and a gym (and yes, I have been hitting the gym -a few times). Also each department has its school clubs, whether it's about a particular course like marketing, or sports or music, which is very fun to see.

The maingate a.k.a. main meet up spot

Music Hall

Management Building

Library

The KHU campus also has highschools, middleschools and kindergartens, so there is cute baby overload everyday!!

There are two types of arena's which is pretty cool. Aside from the few harry potter like buildings, the other buildings look like the ones in this picture. Nothing really magical about that. The one on the right is the Department of Business Administration.

Can I also just mention that while my friends, Slawa and Ayesh,  and I were hiking on our campus (yes we wanted to see where the hills were ending and stuff - which didn't happen because we got stopped by police by walking up because they said the president was at the top and we were not allowed to go there), wait let me pause here to tell you about this adventure.

It sounds like we got approached by secret service police, but it was actually just two ordinary police man, so we obviously didn't believe that 'King" story, because we got it explained basically like this:
Police after google translating on their cellphone what they were trying to say: ehh.... King! *points finger at the top*
Me: The king is there?
Police: Yes!
Me: Wait, really? You mean the president?
Police: Yes!

I kid you not. That is how the conversation went. As a matter of fact, that is how I experienced 50% of the conversations in Korea. Anyways, so my friends and I decided to take another route and we found out that led to a high school and a Buddhist temple. Yes my campus has a temple.  So basically these monks are our homies since we live near the campus.

Homies

As for the schoolsystem itself, I'm not a big fan. Being here in Korea made me realize that Korea is not the place for me personally, to go to school or to go to work. Don't get me wrong, I had a good time. And for one semester I can get over myself and adjust to the system. I just realized that this system is not for me for the long run (such as doing a Masters degree here or an internship).

For example, I don't like the hierarchy culture in the school/professional field. Even though (Korean) professors want to implement the interactive aspect in their classes, I do notice here and there that it is still not appreciated when you disagree in public. I think it has something to do with embarrassing them in a way, it happens in cultures where age is highly valued. Also it is not an unknown fact that the workfield will be very hard for rookies in how people would treat you and talk to you plus all the social obligations that come with it.
Also I don't like the favoritism. Being on good terms with your teacher is important, in my opinion, but it shouldn't influence your grade. Here .. I'm not quite sure how things go. The professor has full authority what goes on in her subject which makes everything depended on the professor (thus also your score). So what you get is that people agree with everything that is said and even bring sweets/drinks for the professor on exam/presentation days. I haven't witnessed this in person, because I have class with mostly foreign students, however I do know that this happens. I don't believe in favouritsm as a way to increase or decrease your grade.
Also the grading system for full time students and Korean students is quite weird. Because universities compete with each other, name and ranking is very important. So what you get is that in the classes the results of the students are distributed in a way that shows that classes have a certain difficulty, which increases the image and ranking of the courses and school. So a certain amount can get a good grade, and a certain amount has to fail.. even though they didn't? I'm not quite sure how this works, but I heard this is common. Well, obviously not in my book. Plus I feel like that pushes people in a too competitive state that is not healthy.  And leads people to comparing themselves too much with other people, which is not always healthy. (in my opinion)
Also the exam system is a lot more focused on memorizing than applying. Overall it's just not my kind of system, also obviously since I'm used to something totally opposite.

So, all in all, I had an amazing time here, also when it comes to school. But the system just doesn't fit me. Basically because I am used to something totally different. But first... Finals are coming. Thank God that the crazy load of projects result in the fact that I have only 2 finals. My progress so far? I've been doing pretty good, except for one course where I'm living on the edge to remain a C-. As long as I remain a score higher than D-, I'm covered. But that should work out just fine. On that note, it reminded me of this hip hop song that was bangin (yes bangin) during my high school days. Don't judge. (that's ok fam, you can skip this)


Rich Boy - Throw Some D's

Blessings and love,

Nina