Days 10 & 11- Fulbright Korea University Visits in Daegu and Busan

On Wednesday, we continued our university visits outside of Seoul with stops in two final cities including Daegu and Busan. In Daegu, we visited Kyungpook National University, as well as Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology (DGIST). In Busan, we visited Pukyong National University and the Busan University of Foreign Studies (BUFS).

Daegu is the fourth largest city in Korea with 2.3 million people. It is known for being the birthplace of Samsung Technologies, in addition to its widespread reputation as the hottest part of Korea.?We started day 10 of our program (on a 95 degree day) at Kyungpook National University (KNU), which is a large public research university with more than 34,000 students across 4 campuses. We met with members of the international office staff, who shared that although KNU receives funding from the Korean government, they are still challenged by the issue of brain drain to Seoul. Like many of the universities we’ve met with this week, they highlighted the need to stand out from other national universities, as well as from their regional competitors, and were focused on “convergence”.

For those of us who were not already familiar with the concept of “convergence” in the higher ed context, we quickly learned from all of the campuses that we visited on days 10 and 11, that this is where many universities outside of Seoul are strategically investing their resources. Convergence education can also be explained as transdisciplinary STEM learning and teaching, and an innovation-focused education strategy to prepare the next generation to adapt in the wake of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

?DGIST was the second university we visited in Daegu, where were learned about their undergraduate “convergence” curriculum, focused on providing interdisciplinary STEM education where students gain knowledge in broader academic tracks, rather than specializing. DGIST is a very young university, founded in 2004 with the support of the Korean Ministry of Science and Technology (setting it apart from most other public universities, which receive funding from the Ministry of Education). The larger goal of the Korean government in enabling this campus outside of Seoul, is to address the serious labor shortages occurring in regionally-based companies. ?Following our meeting with the DGIST international team, we enjoyed touring the unique campus and labs where we got to see semiconductor manufacturing technology, as well as various microscope technology up-close (even if we were a bit out of our depth)! ??

On day 11, we had our final two university visits in Busan, which is the second largest city in Korea with 3.3 million people. It is the 6th busiest port city in the world and Korea’s largest, as well as a major tourist destination for its seaside location and beaches. We started the morning at Pukyong National University, which has the best program in Korea for Fisheries and Ocean Science, among many other academic disciplines. We learned about that university’s unique summer programs for international students, which include courses in diving, sailing, aquatics and shipbuilding. It was also great to hear that Pukyong University had just signed an MOU with the U.S. Embassy in Korea to open an on-campus “American Corner” (a Dept. of State program designed to increase educational opportunities between the U.S. and other countries like Fulbright does). We then took a campus tour and visited the university’s indoor golf practice facility, impressive fitness center, and olympic size swimming pool where we spotted some students in scuba gear getting ready for diving practice.

Our very last university visit took place at the Busan University of Foreign Studies, located a bit outside of downtown Busan. While the university was originally founded in 1982, we visited their beautiful, newer campus located along the slope of a mountain with scenic views overlooking the area. We took a brief tour of the campus and had our first opportunity to check out a campus student housing complex before heading to a meeting with their international team. They shared information about international student population and exchange programs, as well as their challenges and strategic initiatives, echoing what we’ve heard from a number of other regional universities about competition with Seoul and exploration of a convergence curriculum. Most notably, they shared information about the Global Korea Scholarship (GKS) which was available for students at their university, and is designed to provide international students with opportunities to study at higher education institutions in Korea by covering their airfare, tuition and other costs.

To keep this concise, I’ll end with a short overview of our after-hours fun. Although we arrived to Busan rather late on Wednesday evening, our hotel was located in the super touristy neighborhood of Haeundae. We headed out for “Chi-Mek”, the Korean term for fried chicken and beer (mekchu). We then headed over to the beach, where we slipped out of our shoes, got sand between our toes and dipped our feet in the ocean. We had just a short bit of extra time in the Busan train station when we ended our university visits on Thursday, before catching the 3-hour bullet train back to Seoul. A colleague and I decided to check out a Viking-themed restaurant for dinner (what?), which was adjacent to a Dunkin’ Donuts far fancier than anything I’ve encountered in the U.S. Of course I stopped there for a post-dinner iced latte and matcha-cream filled donut.

After visiting 14 Korean universities and multiple cultural sites over the course of two weeks, we’ll report back to the Fulbright office in Seoul tomorrow for the final day of our program!