My Yonsei semester is officially over a few days ago when my grades came out. I took 4 business classes and 2 electives this semester with most classes being IEE classes that are specially made for exchange students.

Disclaimer: I wasn’t planning on studying during my semester in Yonsei and that was what I did – travel 3 out of 7 days in a week and studied only a few hours for each exam (never exceeded more than 6 hours per subject per exam). So the grades you see here perhaps can gauge how much you can play with each module.

IEE3322 Development and Culture (Prof Jeong AnSuk)

This is a psychology module focusing on human developmental tasks at the different stages in life and its differences between the different cultures. While most classes in Yonsei are twice a week (1hr50mins each session), this class only meets once a week (2hr30mins per session) each week.

The class topics included infancy, toddlerhood, childhood, adolescence, early adulthood, adulthood and late adulthood. Here’s the breakdown of the assessment:

Examinations 50%
Presentation 20%
Final Paper 20%
Participation 10%

We had one midterm exam and one final exam which are non-cumulative (all my modules in Yonsei had non-cumulative exams meaning chapters tested in midterms were not tested again in the final exams). Both exams had around 25 – 27 multiple choice questions with some short answer questions. If you put in some effort to memorise the content, you wouldn’t have any problem with the exam. I took 4 – 6 hours per exam to study and I still got a high score for it.

For the presentation, the class of 40 was split into 4 groups (You get to choose which group you want to be in) based on our topic of interest: Birth, Marriage, Death and Memorial. Each large group is then split further into sub-groups of the different culture (and/or religion) that the people are interested in. For example, I was in the Marriage group specifically the Korean culture subgroup. The final paper is just a short 2 – 3 page summary of your presentation so it’s very doable if you participate in the preparation of the presentation.

The teacher, Professor Jeong was really knowledgeable in the field as she holds a doctorate degree in psychology. She is also very friendly and approachable, even offering to help with any non-class-related problems we face in Yonsei. More importantly, she speaks good and clear English so it was easy to understand her in class.

Overall, I really enjoyed taking this module and it is my favourite class this semester in Yonsei.

Grade received: A- (92/100). Most of the classes I took are not graded on a bell curve but rather an absolute score which you can find here under Grading Policy.

IEE3339 Korean Language & Society (Prof Kim EunHo)

The class discussed about the Korean culture and Korean life in general from housing, schooling, dressing to Kpop and Kdrama. We even talked about the plastic surgery culture and slangs used in Korea. The professor will also teach us specific Korean vocabulary (To take this class, you should at least know how to read Korean Hangeul) related to the topic that we are discussing. It was really interesting!

This module was the easiest and lightest class I have ever taken. Seriously, I didn’t even need to print any notes before class because the professor never uploaded any notes. Also, the class was the smallest in size compared to any other class I’ve taken. There were around 12 people in my class. In terms of assessment, here’s the breakdown:

Attendance & Participation 15%
Assignments 5%
Mid-term Project 30%
Final Presentation 35%
Final Exam 15%

Although there was a 5% assignment component, we never got any assignment in the end so I guess she deleted it from the grading calculations.

The midterm project was a 10 to 15 minutes presentation about a topic of our interest related to the course (ie anything about Korean culture) in groups of 2 – 3. My partner and I decided to do a presentation on Abortion Laws in Korea and its controversies. It was really very simple and took only a few hours to prepare for.

For our final presentation, we needed to make a short film (10-15 minutes), again using the topics covered in groups of 2 to 4. It could be in any format you want so it’s pretty straightforward too.

The final exam was a take home exam in which we need to do 2 questions out of 12 questions and submit it via email to the professor. Each question only took 1.5 pages for me to complete my answer with double spacing. It was the easiest exam of the semester LOL.

Grade received: A+ (98-100).

IEE3293 Strategic Management (Prof Hans Weemaes)

This is one of the four business classes I took last semester and I took it because it’s my major’s requirement. It’s both offered in as an IEE course and as a normal business course but I decided to take the IEE one because I thought the course would be lighter as it is designed for exchange students (I guess I was somewhat right). The breakdown of grading given at the start of the semester was:

Class Contribution 10%
Class Attendance 10%
Group Assignments 30%
Final Exam 50%

We had to do 2 small group projects (both using strategic management frameworks to analyse our chosen company) during the semester. We did not have a mid term exam but instead we had to do a group project: analysing Zara from a Harvard Business Case using all the strategic frameworks we learned and making some recommendations. The final exam was a take home exam too so the module assessment was pretty chill.

What was unique about this class was that the professor prepared a special course book for the class with all the semester’s notes printed inside it so it was really easy for the students. We only had to go to the school’s printing shop (in Daewoo Hall) to buy a copy and that was all the materials needed for the semester.

Grade received: B (I heard this one is based on a curve).

I will be reviewing the other 3 business classes I took in another post!