Today we visited our first Korean university: Hangyang University, a major engineering university, dubbed the “engine of Korea.” Although there are plenty of differences and similarities between American universities and Korean universities, one difference I sadly noted was Hanguang University’s lack of a dessert section in their cafeteria.

Learning about Hangyang University was really interesting because it gave some insight into how universities in Korea function. For one, our previous research of Hangyang revealed that their acceptance rate was about 3.8% in 2014. This very low acceptance rate was very surprising to me, because the lowest acceptance rate in the US is that of Stanford’s, which is above 4%. Hangyang isn’t in the top 100s in the world’s universities, so this made me curious about the acceptance rates of Korean universities that ranked higher than it, but to my dismay I could not find any statistics on this. When we asked about this, we actually learned that this is due to the limit the government puts on private universities on their class size. One thing I learned about Hangyang that I had not heard of before was their quick two-week program that they held in the winter. They have many opportunities for international students to study abroad at Hangyang, and they offer everything from Kpop Vocals to Calculus I. 

One speaker spoke about the attributes of Korean people. Seeing the list he put together, my first thought was that all these matched me. Once he started explaining the reason for choosing these specific words, I really saw how Korean society today is the result of their history. 
We were then given a tour by some fresh students of Hangyang. They spoke English really well, making me think about how school in the US don’t stress being multi-lingual. The campus was really gorgeous, with flowers and green everywhere. They have an outdoor amphitheater, and it’s seats were simply grass and concrete. 

It was a bit of a hike in the small area that we were given a tour of. The students and guides made fun of their hilly campus which made me smile at the fact that students across the world complain about the same things we do. 

Lunch was at one of their cafeterias. It was a tray of crispy pork cutlet and kimchi rice with egg. 

Afterwards we were went to a museum about the history of Hangyang. They have many famous alumni, and it’s impressive that their alumni network is so wide-reaching, really giving reason to their nickname. 

Later in the day we took the subway to Hongdae, and I am proud to say we made it to where we wanted to go without being lost. Hongdae is a very lively place with many street shops and lots of food places. For dinner we were graciously treated by Dr. Yun and Dr. Clark, and our meal was really filling.

Hongdae at night is really gorgeous because of how the many shops and buildings light up the dark sky.

There wasn’t any dessert at the cafeteria in Hangyang, but we ended the night with some yummy ice cream cones.