“Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU) has seen a huge rise at the university’s worldwide ranking and in parallel to it, rise in the number of international students” says Professor Navrati Saxena (SKKU Associate Professor & International Graduate Student Advisor at College of Information and Communication Engineering). Professor Saxena who has also successfully helped organize the ‘Diwali Event’ in SKKU also pointed out that,“efforts towards international students should be made in a comprehensive way and not just in their studies.”

With around 3,000 degree seeking international students from 65 countries studying in Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU) and around 600 exchange students coming and going each semester, meeting an international student in SKKU’s two campuses is common place. There isn’t a day when you do not come across an international student on your way to somewhere. Mandarin, Arabic, Urdu, German, Portuguese or other languages are so frequently spoken it feels like just using English and Korean is wanting.

An international campus atmosphere is beneficial to student studying there because it gives you an experience that in normal cases you would have to come across when you are studying abroad. For SKKU the influx of international student has been very apparent and welcomed.

However, this is not all good news. The needs and wants of the various students from the many nations are a challenge for the university, especially for the Office of International Affairs (OIA), its’ primary department tasked to meet those needs.

“We try to meet the needs of our international students, with most or all predicaments they encounter, such as helping with academic problems in their courses, visa problems and also the occasional call to a student‘s landlord to negotiate the rent”, says the OIA officers in the Natural Science Campus. “Providing more for our international students even in comparison to what a Korean student may get from the university is obvious and necessary because of their basic status, being foreigners studying in Korea.”

Over the past few years policies have evolved to systematically meet those needs. While there is still more to go, it has come to a point where the complaints from the students are heard less with every passing year in terms of academic activities, without fully addressing the entire picture.

That is why for the last few years, but especially this year, OIA has been very supportive of international student driven activities with a particular emphasis in extracurricular activities. Events for international students from this year are more frequent and often more visible than before. The goal, the OIA admits, is to make the students more comfortable in living here at SKKU.

“The studying part of the SKKU experience is a constant challenge. One we are more comfortable to address because the many outlets of support that are already in place, like the individual administration offices and supporting offices” says another OIA officials. “However, unlike our Korean students the extracurricular-aspect of college life has its limitation for students from different cultures.”

Rachel the Malay student representative talks about her Malay peers difficulty in adjusting, “Korean students like to drink and often make friends through drinking situations because it's a good way to break the ice. However, this is not allowed in  the Muslim faith. So it does bring out awkward situations.”

This sentiment is shared also with other muslim students, “Because it is our duty as muslims to have to prey 5 times a day and fast during ramadan my Korean peers find it strange,” says Kami, one of the student representative for the Pakistani students here at SKKU. “However, the Korean students around me have become more adjusted to our religious practices that sometimes when I’m concentrating at my work and forget about my prayer, they will be the ones who tell me that its time.”

With this apparent divide, the task is to come up with a way to present  a mutual understanding of each other, for both international students and Korean students, and by doing so  enhance a more amicable atmosphere for international students.  It is the belief of the OIA that international student events will nurture, if not expediate, this process of mutual understanding.

The efforts made by the OIA on this were very apparent from this year, as people were able to see Indian students having a cricket tournament, vietnamese students having soccer matches, Pakistani students listening to a lecture from the first Pakistani women alpinist, and Indian students celebrating ‘Diwali festival’,  to name a few.

The reverse experience is also provided in the campus where international students get to experience Choseok by making songpyun, watch the Seokjeon Daeje (National Rite to Confucius) at the Old Sungkyunkwan, go to student festivals and visit culture sites and events in and out of the campus.

In addition to the cultural events, activities led and run by student bodies of nationalities in  SKKU were also more prevalent this year. One new addition is the “Meet the Seniors” event that enables freshmen to get the chance to meet their seniors from their country and learn first hand on what studying in SKKU is like. This year was the first time for this event where 4 major nationalities (Chinese, Pakistani, Vietnamese, Indian) in SKKU gathered around 200 freshmen and seniors to such an event, held separately for each country. It is expected that more nationalities will join in for next year.

Another instance is the “International Food Stall” where the combined effort of the individual nationalities came together to present a little bit of their own culture for the Korean students. Again the main nationalities in SKKU prepared food for the all the students at the Autumn Student Festival and the SKKU President Chung Kyu Sang who visited the stall during the festival.

“Creating an international environment is not just about having the students learn and study in a foreign language, but having them feel at home; that is, to create an inducive environment for them to perform their best” says the OIA. “If we are successful in creating such an environment, this in turn will guarantee international students coming to SKKU.”

These new activities for international students in SKKU are a culmination of years’ experience and effort to understand international students, and will hopefully create the desired atmosphere that not only will be beneficial for the university but for the international students as well.