ISS PROGRAM

Introduction

WELCOME TO THE INTERNATIONAL SUMMER SESSION IN KOREAN AND ASIAN STUDIES

Given the important role HUFS performs in the teaching of languages and area studies in Korea, the launch of the International Summer Session in Korean and Asian Studies was simply a natural extension of the university’s mission.

Since the program’s inception in 2003, our goal at HUFS ISS has been to fill a unique niche in the offerings in Korean and Asian Studies by bringing together students and scholars residing in Korea as well as abroad and providing them with a sequence of intensive courses and associated co-curricular activities around which a learning community based on a shared interest in Asian Studies could be forged. In this learning community, supported and guided by our outstanding faculty of internationally renowned scholars, we hope you, the student, will develop lifelong bonds of friendship and solidarity in an atmosphere of collegiality.

Because language proficiency takes years to develop, we wanted to offer Korean and Asian Studies courses taught in English in order to eliminate the barrier which lack of proficiency in the Korean language poses for those students from abroad, who are seriously interested in pursuing Korean and Asian Studies, but who do not yet have sufficient mastery of the Korean language to enroll as regular students in a Korean university. We encourage overseas students majoring in East Asian Studies or Korean Studies, as well as students of Korean heritage, to browse through our course offerings as you will no doubt find several of interest that may not be offered at your home institutions.

International diversity among the student body as well as among the faculty is one of the hallmarks of our program. Professors from the U.S., the U.K., France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Sweden as well as Korea teach in our program. Each summer students from approximately 30 different countries attend the ISS (overseas students in past years have come from the U.S., Canada, France, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Poland, Russia, Japan, China Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Taiwan, and many more). Approximately 20% of the students enrolled in the HUFS ISS program are domestic Korean students earning credit toward their university degrees. The Korean students are thus able to improve their international competency and language abilities while sharing classroom and extra-curricular activities with the international students and the overseas students are integrated quite spontaneously into the lifestyle of contemporary Korean college students.

We look forward to welcoming you to the HUFS campus this summer. Our dedicated ISS faculty and staff are hard at work preparing for this summer session, building on our past successes and fine-tuning our program to offer you an outstanding educational experience in Korea.

Cordially,
In Chul Kim, Ph.D.
President
Hankuk University of Foreign Studies