An insight of English classes at Seoul National University
Have you ever thought of the number of English classes at the Seoul National University? If not, this post is for you! All the information that I discuss in this post is based on the class data in the two main semesters in 2021.
General view of language distribution
As a national university, it is no surprise that most of the classes at SNU are conducted in Korean. From the given graph below, we can see that there are more classes in Korean in the spring semester than fall semester. Besides, for the combined Master’s/Doctorate program, 13.7% of classes are conducted in English. This number is relatively higher than in other programs (Bachelor - 9.7%, Masters - 7%, Doctorate - 6.4%, and Combined Bachelor/Master’s - 0%).
Colleges providing most English classes
Second, let’s take a look at the proportion of English classes in each college. Amongst ten colleges that provide the most English classes, four of them are independent graduate schools. It is easily seen that the percentage of classes conducted in English in such colleges is relatively high compared to the rest of the colleges. In addition, it is interesting that most of the colleges providing English classes are STEM-focused colleges.
What if we only consider the number of the English classes in the Bachelor’s program? This number will be surprising to you - the highest percentage of classes conducted in English among the top ten colleges is only 25%, relatively smaller than the number of Graduate School of International Studies, 83.5%. This also suggests that prospective international undergraduate students should acquire a high level of proficiency in Korean in order to thrive at Seoul National University.
Departments providing most English classes
What about the top 20 departments providing classes in English? The two graphs below will surprise you! Once again, we can confirm that post-graduate programs provide more English classes than undergraduate programs. Besides, we can easily see that the number of STEM-oriented departments also dominates this list. Only 6 non-STEM departments are on the undergraduate list. This suggests that students who are interested in social science, humanities should have a considerable Korean level to study in SNU.
Subject for Liberal Education classes in English
Finally, let’s see how many general education classes are conducted in English. Undergraduate students are required to take about 40 credits for general education classes before graduation. If we only consider the Fall semester, we can see that SNU does not provide a variety of general education classes in English. It is noteworthy that there are some fields that do not provide any English classes as well!
What do you think about this data? Let us know in the comments down below!