 Good afternoon. Welcome to this webinar on studying Korean at SOAS. Thank you for all taking the time to be here today. My name is Alan Cummings. I'm the admissions tutor for our Korean undergraduate degrees this year. So this afternoon I'm going to give you something of a sense of what studying Korean at SOAS is like. I'm sure that lots of you will have some questions about the degrees or about studying at SOAS. But please feel free to save those for the end. I'll leave 10 minutes or so at the end of the talk where I can answer them. So please just type your comments into the chat and then I'll go back through them at the end of the talk and try to answer as many as I can. So why should you come to SOAS? Academics make fairly hopeless salespeople, I think. But part of my duty here is to try to convince you of why you should come to SOAS over at any of the other universities that teach Korean in the UK. And there's a few things that I would point to, three or four things. The first is that SOAS really offers an amazing concentration of knowledge and expertise on the languages and cultures of Asia, Africa and the Middle East. There's nowhere else in the world that has as many specialists over 350 of us in the languages and the art, the politics, the music, the economics, the history of these really important readings. In the East Asia Department, we currently have six full-time staff who work on research, Korean linguistics, Korean history and Korean literature, modern and pre-modern literature. In addition, there are other academics involved in the study of Korea in other departments around SOAS. In the art and archeology department, for example, in the religions department as well. So if you choose to come to SOAS, you have a really amazing opportunity to study with some of the major scholars in their respective fields. Asian studies at SOAS have been recognized in the last research assessment exercises being the pre-eminent institution in the UK for Asian studies. So that's one of the things. You have this really rich environment here where you'll be able to study with people who are working at the forefront of their different disciplines in the study of Korea. Another thing I'd point you to is actually the SOAS library. Maybe that's not going to be the first thing you think about when you come to choose your degree. But as you progress through the degree, as you get into your third and fourth year, in particular, your ability to read Korean language material will increase. And the SOAS library has a really rich set of resources in Korean, as well as in English, which are about Korea. So the SOAS library is really an important resource. It's one of the best in the country indeed in Europe. And there's a vast range of material there that you will be able to have access to to SOAS. The final thing I'd say is about the atmosphere and the location of SOAS itself. SOAS is not a huge university. You're not going to be overwhelmed by the number of people here. There's around 4,500 students or so. But we are a very, very international university. There are students at SOAS from 130 different countries around the world. 45-50% of our student body is from outside the UK. Location of SOAS, I mean, is right in the center of London. You're just behind the British Museum. So from SOAS, you're able to walk to all of these wonderful places. If you're interested in Korean film, if you're interested in Korean music or Korean food, maybe, there's just so many opportunities, far more opportunities in London to come into contact and access that. There's things that you would elsewhere in the UK. Okay, but I should move on and say a few things about the degrees. I can see that some of the questions coming in are about those kinds of things. So let me just explain, first of all, that we have two different types of degree on the graduate level in the East Asia Department. And the easiest way to think about these is that we have three-year degrees and we have four-year degrees. So our four-year degree is called BA Korean. And it's a four-year degree because it includes a compulsory year that you spend abroad studying at a university in Korea. It's possible that year abroad is in the second year. It's possible to combine this particular degree, so BA Korean, with some of the other subjects that Sauce offers. So, for example, it's possible to do a joint degree in BA Korean and Economics or BA Korean and Management or BA Korean and Japanese Studies. If you go onto the website and look under the BA Korean and option on the degree list, you'll get a full list of all those different options that we offer. So there's about a dozen different subjects that you can combine BA Korean or BA Korean Studies with. The other undergraduate degree that we offer is BA Korean Studies. And this is a three-year degree, so it doesn't have a year abroad component to it. The only exceptions to that are if you choose to study BA Korean Studies and Chinese or BA Korean Studies and Japanese. And if you choose either of those options, then your degree will take four years because you spend a year abroad in either China or Japan. So that's the major. You can also combine BA Korean Studies with all of the subjects that I mentioned as well. So it's possible to do a joint degree with both of those with both the three-year degree and with the four-year degree. So the other major difference between those two degrees is that on BA Korean, there is a very powerful, a very intense focus upon language. On that four-year degree, we aim to get you to a very high level of competence in the language and your reading, your writing, your speaking, and listening. So the focus on that degree, particularly in the first, second, and third years, most of your time will be spent studying language. On BA Korean Studies, there's a lesser focus on language and there's a greater focus on other disciplinary subjects. So modules that have to do with Korean history, Korean literature, Korean art, maybe, or religions. There's a whole list of all of these modules. Again, you can go on the website and get a better idea of the full range of the modules that we offer. So that's the major difference. So it's a three-year degree or it's a four-year degree. And the four-year degree, there's a much heavier focus on language acquisition and that four-year degree. Let me give you a little more idea of what the structure of those degrees are like. The way that your course, your module options work as a student at SAS is that each year you're here. You have to take 120 credits. And some of those credits will be chosen for you. There will be compulsory modules. Later on, particularly third and fourth year, there will be lots of options that you can choose for yourself. So to some extent, you're able to kind of sculpt the modules and the subjects that you're taking. But for example, if you're doing a single subject, BA Korean, in your first year, the modules you would have to take are K100 Elementary Korean. This is the core language module. It's worth 60 credits. Then there's a module called the Introduction to the History of East Asia that you will take. This is a new module. It's not on the website yet, but this will be running from September next year. And it's a module, of course, which is about the history of Korea and China and Japan, and about the interrelationships across history between those three states. We also have a module called Modern Korea 2, Culture and Society, which is looking at kind of 20th century and later contemporary culture and society in Korea. Because you spend your second year there, we want to prepare you for the kind of things, the distinctive things about Korean society you're going to encounter while you're there. So that's what that module is preparing you for. We also have a study skills module in the first year, which is there to prepare you with some of the skills that you're going to use throughout your entire degree. How do you use the library? How do you do research? How do you write an essay? What does an effective argument look like? So those are the modules that you take in the first year. I should say that that K-100 Elementary Korean module, it aims to teach you basic speaking, listening, reading, writing, and translation skills. And that module you spend around 10 hours a week in classrooms. So different types of classes, you know, there are grammar classes, conversation classes, writing classes, and so on. I should actually add here that our language teachers say that in your first year, for every R that you spend in a language classroom, you're going to need to spend maybe two or three hours studying the language by yourself. So learning vocab, practicing Hangul, doing homework, and so on. So if you begin to think about, you know, the amount of time that this is going to take. So 10 hours in a classroom per week, 20 or 30 hours on top of that of self-study. And that's just half the modules that you're taking because you have the other, you know, the history and the culture and society modules that you're taking as well. You know, that's just to prepare you. Our language teachers are lovely, they're wonderful. But they also require you to put in, to commit a lot of time and a lot of effort to kind of get you to the level where you want to be. This is, it's a very rigorous, it's a very intensive language course on Be A Korean. We aim to kind of get you up to a reading, writing, and speaking, and listening kind of high school or beginning university kind of level in four years. So you'll have to be very, very committed to the study of language, and that's also something that we look for in the applications. As you move further through the degree program, the second year is the year abroad. I'll say a little bit about that. So the Korean year abroad is in year two. There are two different partner universities that we have in Korea. So there's Korea University, KU, and there's Sogun University. And we have, there's a placement task to determine which of those two partners that you will go to. The year that you spend in Korea, most of your time in Korea you spend studying Korean language. Again, it's a very intensive program that they offer. You know, you're coming in, you will have done a year at Sogun already, but they're kind of aiming to kind of, to really build on that foundation that you've got in the, that you've got in the first year. That year abroad, it is compulsory for students who are on BA Korean. So that's something that you need to bear in mind when you think about which degree you want to choose. If you're kind of worried about the financing of that year abroad, there's a couple of things which I should mention. If you're getting student finance, for example, because that year abroad is a compulsory part of your program, student finance will cover that year abroad. So when you first apply for student finance, you tell them that you're taking a four year degree and that there is a year abroad as part of that degree, and then they will offer you the funding for that year abroad. The way it works in terms of money, for that year abroad, you pay a reduced fee to SOAS for that year. Currently, I think it's around 1,300 or 1,400 pounds. And that will cover all of your tuition while you're in Korea. Of course, you also have to, you know, you've got to pay for your plane fare, you've got to pay for your accommodation when you're there. So that's why we have that very reduced fee in order to help you to help you do that. There are also a limited number of scholarships available each year to help students with some of the costs of the year abroad. For example, the British Korean Veterans Association offers some scholarships to our students each year. And again, those will be determined on a competitive basis. Of course, it's a fantastic opportunity to go to live and study in Korea for a whole year. It allows you to really improve your language skills and your understanding of Korean culture. Aside from all of the new friends, you'll make the wonderful experiences that you'll have while you're living there. Once you come back from Korea, then you have the third year and you have the fourth year here in London. As you kind of move further up into the third and fourth year, the language modules you take, they become more about using the language skills that you've managed to build up so far, and you begin to apply them to real-life materials. So for example, in the fourth year, you can start reading Korean literary texts in the original, kind of reading through them and translating them in class and thinking about the content as well. You'll have courses where you're looking at Korean historical texts, for example, if that's something that interests you. So yeah, as you come into the third and fourth year, you have more of those what we call language use modules. There are also, there's a range of more advanced non-language modules that we offer, including there's a really popular course we have on North Korea. So you can see the information, again, about all of those modules on the website. You can get a full list of them, how they're assessed, how many hours per week they are, what the content is, what the readings are, and so on. All of that is on the website. I know that some of you are interested in employment perhaps, and the degree in BA Korean or Korean Studies, it really provides you with lots of different transferable skills. You have lots of writing skills, research skills that you'll develop through working on your non-language modules. You'll have the skills that you develop as well. Many Korean companies are looking to employ foreign graduates who can understand Korean. You'll also have opportunities to work with Western companies who want to expand into Korea. Recent graduates from SAS have ended up working in all sorts of interesting different areas. There are people who have gone into industry, people who have gone into work in Korean media. For example, translation. I know that some of you were mentioned in translation earlier in the chat bar. Some of you may know the novel The Vegetarian, which won the Man Booker International Prize a few years ago. That prize-winning translation was actually made by one of our BA Korean graduates at SELAS. There's something really interesting to aim for translation. There's some people who go into different industries, who go into telecoms, maybe people who go to teach in Korea. There's a whole range of things that you can possibly end up doing. I'd like to use the rest of the time to try to answer some of your questions. I'm just scrolling back through the questions to see what we have. I'll just take these in the order they came. Madeline has asked, if you studied Korean as a major and Japanese as a minor, can you spend the summer in Japan? For students who are studying Japanese as their major and Korean as a minor, we have a special program whereby they can spend a few weeks studying university in Korea. Unfortunately, the reverse is not true, so there isn't any university program that we can send you to. But of course, Korea and Japan are very close to each other, so if you're studying Korea, you're perfectly free to go and spend some time in Japan during the university holidays. So that's basically how that works. Let's see. Tassim Zara Sen has asked, how does a joint degree work for history and Korean? The way that the work on that is spread out. So in the first year, as I say, you take 120 credits each year, so 60 of those credits will be Korean and 60 will be history. So those 60 credits that you take in your first year, on the Korean side, they will just be Korean language. So that is all you'll be doing with us in the first year, and then in the history side, you'll be taking whatever there. If you go into the history department and you look at the compulsory modules for their joint degrees, then you can see which modules you have to take on the history side. The second year you will spend in Korea with everybody else, and in Korea, you will just be studying Korean. Then when you come back, third and fourth year, it'll be a similar kind of split. So 60 credits will be from the Korean modules and 60 credits each year, then will be from the history modules. And as you go into the third and fourth year, you can choose, there's a little bit of choice of what you can take on each side. Let's see. So Chanel has asked about in terms of qualifications. You've noticed that we asked, we say that we prefer to see an A level in foreign languages. We say that as a preference rather than saying that it's essential. The thing that I'm really interested to see is, if you have some experience of studying a foreign language, then tell us about that. It doesn't really matter if it's GCSE or if it's A level. Sorry about that. I think we got disconnected and now we're reconnected. So I was saying that if you've studied a foreign language before, tell us about it in your application. We don't really mind whether it's GCSE, whether it's A level, or whether it's something else. We just want to know that you know what studying a language is all about. Charlie has a question. She asks, what happens during the year abroad? Is it like a school exchange or is it a different university? Or do you mostly remain independent? The answer to that is it's an exchange program. So you go to Korea and you study at university in Korea. And they have a special Korean language program there for foreign students. And you'll be spending lots of hours studying Korean language in the university. Of course you have free time, you have your evenings, you have your weekends to do what you want to do. Hannah has asked about whether you get to choose the university you study at during the year abroad. As I say, we have two different partners in Korea. We have Korea University and we have Subang University. You can state a preference and then we will kind of allocate you based upon results from a placement test from your first year courses. Vicky is asking a similar kind of question. So Korea University and Subang University are our partners. And she also asks, do you have to have done a foreign language previously to be eligible? We prefer you to have studied a foreign language before. So if you haven't studied foreign language yet, try studying a foreign language now. So you get a little bit of a sense of what studying it is about. Second question from Tassin, who says, I'm yet to send in my UCAS form. Will this affect my chance of getting an offer at university? Quick answer to that, no. The applications, the closing date for the applications is in January. So you've still got plenty of time. We don't prioritize those applications that come in first. And even after that deadline in January has passed, we keep on looking at applications all through February, March, April, May, June. We're still looking at applications. So you can still apply even after that deadline. So please get your application in, but you're not going to be disadvantaged if it's coming in after Christmas or sometime in January. Crystal Bell has asked a similar kind of question about Korean and law. The combinations for that are, you can see the available combinations. I'm not actually sure, is there a combination with Korean law? I think there may be, but let me check that. If you want to send me an email, I can look into that and get back to you. Siri has asked about if you have prior knowledge of the Korean language, is it possible to choose more advanced modules from the beginning? Yes, we have an alternative program that we can, if you arrive and you've done quite a lot of Korean before, we can give you a placement test. And then our language teachers can place you in a slightly higher level of language module from the beginning. So yeah, we have got means and mechanisms to work with you. Let's see more questions. I think some of these we've answered very well. Nayra has a question about housing in Korea. This is actually an interesting one. Our Korean partner universities do have dormitories, so you can choose to stay in a dormitory. Most of our students in the past have deliberately chosen not to stay in Korean university dormitories. I think because the regulations they have are quite strict about kind of the Rs that you have to be back in the dormitory at and whether you can have friends to visit and so on and so forth. They're quite strict. So almost all of our students each year, they choose to rent accommodation outside the university privately. We give you lots of advice on this. The students who were there last year, you get to meet them and they can explain how it all works. Lots of students, our students end up sharing a flat together. So if you want to be in a dormitory, you can be in a dormitory. If you want to go outside, prefer to go outside and have a bit more freedom, then you can do that. Christabel has a question about joining law and Korean together and would you still be able to become a lawyer? If you're interested in becoming a qualified lawyer, what normally happens is you can take a degree and then at the end of that you can take a law conversion course. And that will then qualify you to be a lawyer. That would be one way to approach that. Let's see. Tassin has asked, can I continue to study international tourism management for postgraduate? If I consider to study international relations in Korea or with history? Yeah, but I think that would be an interesting choice to make. International relations is more about politics, I think, than tourism usually. But I think you can gain some interest. Vicky who asks, can you do work experience in the year abroad in Korea? That depends upon your visa. I think at the moment the student visas for Korea do allow you to work a limited number of hours each week. But the number of those hours that can vary and it depends upon whatever the Korean government says it's going to be. But I think in the past, students have been able to work for 10 hours a week or something like that.