Where do you go from high school? While there are a plethora of options, the majority of high school leavers in South Korea will opt to attend university. From what I've heard, and relievingly so, getting into university is the hardest part, and you'd hope so with the intensity of high school in Korea. From then on graduating is just a matter of passing your classes. Univerisity is pretty straight-forward, right? Lectures every now and then, assignments, exams, lots of free time, and an endless suppy of good looking college students, that's basically it, right? Actually, yeah. But wait! There's more! 

The university school year begins in late February or early March and continues until mid-June. Students usually enter university immediately after high school, taking a “gap year” is uncommon. Male students often attend university for one or two semesters before they are drafted into mandatory military service (this will probably be a topic of its own later), where they will work for two years or more and this means it is especially important for them to get an early start in their university studies.

Why this matters: As if preparing for university wasn’t cause enough for anxiety, the impending military service is a worry that occupies the thoughts of male students and those of their families, friends, and girlfriends and can be very difficult for young couples. 

In Korea, there are three top universities known collectively as SKY universities - that's short for Seoul National Univeristy (SNU), Korea University (KU) and Yonsei University. These are the schools which are more or less "elite". If you wish to set your story in an environment such as a top university then these three are your safest best. In South Korea, admission to one of the SKY universities is widely considered as determining one's career and social status. In fact, many of South Korea's most influential politicians, lawyers, physicians, engineers, professors, and policy makers have graduated from one of the SKY universities. Naturally there's a lot of rivalry among these three schools, expressed mostly through inter-school sports competitions and notable alumni, but here's a (not so) short summary of each school so you can pick the one of your liking. 

1. Seoul University 

• 서울대학교 (Seoul Daehakgyo), colloquially known as 'Seoul-dae' in Korean (SNU in English)
• Admissions to Seoul National University is extremely competitive. 
  • Students are admitted by major instead of into a general freshman pool.
  • Currently, its freshmen belong to the top 2.5% of all Korean students who take the National University Entrance Examination
• ​Has over 1300 dorm rooms on campus
  • Unlike other schools, it has no curfew hours (so you can party all night long after your midterms!!!!!!!) 
  • (here's a picture)
    
• Kyujanggak
  • Royal library of th Joseon Dynasty, founded in 1776 
  • Archives are maintained by Kyujanggak Institute for Korean Studies at the Seoul National University
  • Functions as a deposit for Korean historical records and a centre for research and publication of an annual journal titled Kyujanggak (cool co-curricular idea, anyone? :D)
• ​Other facilities include the SNU Museum and SNU Museum of Art
• Reputation (i.e the only reason you're still reading this lbh)
  • A study found that the university's name-value translates into wages that are on average about 12 percent higher than that of other Korean universities.
  • SNU graduates dominate South Korea's academics, government, politics and business
  • Four out of seven presidential candidates in 2002 were SNU graduates.
  • Ranked 31st in the world and 3rd in Asia
  • Top 5 world ranked subjects:
    • 17th, chemical engineering
    • 22nd, pharmacy
    • 23rd, materials science
    • 29th, chemistry
    • 30th, sociology
• Alumni include:
  • Lee Soo Man (founder of SM Ent)
  • Beenzino (rapper)
  • Kim Tae Hee (actress)
  • Korea's 18th and 20th prime ministers 

2. Korea University

• 고려대학교 (Goryeo Daehakgyo)
• Private research univerisity (they do a lot of research activities)
• Established in 1905, one of the oldest schools in South Korea
• Well known for its College of Law
• Very competitive entry
  • In 2012, Korea University received 90,062 undergraduate applications and admitted 4,326 of the applicants (4.80%) 
• Reputation
  • ​In 2013, the university was ranked 145th in the world and 19th in Asia
• ​The overall number of international students is expected to be over 2,000 and rising
• Has an ice rink
• Special dorm building for visiting scholars, foreign professors and exchange students. 
   
• Has a special school tradition 
  • Ipselenti- Cry of "Ji Ya" (입실렌티) is a cheering festival that is held by Korea University's cheering squad on the last night of the Granite Tower University Festival.
  • Students sing Korea University's cheering songs, dance along and enjoy.
  • Celebrities are also invited to perform there. 
• Notable alumni include
  • Lee Myung Bak (10th president of South Korea and former president of Hyundai Group)
  • Sung Si Kyung (singer)

3. Yonsei University

• Private research university
• Established in 1885
• 연세대학교 (Yonse daehakgyo)
• Also very competitive
• Founded on Christian principles and purporting to "produce Christian leaders with the spirits of freedom and truth"
  • ​Originally founded by American Protestant missionaries
  • School motto: "The truth will set you free" (John 8:32)
  • As of 2009, a student does not have to be an active Christian to be admitted to Yonsei University
• ​Akaraka is the festival for students
  • It is usually held on May
  • During the show, many singers come and give performances
• The Yonsei Annals -monthly English student magazine, founded in 1962.
  • One of the top rated English University monthly magazines in Korea, run entirely by Yonsei University students
• Reputation
  • In 2012, Yonsei University was ranked 112th overall
    • 81st, Arts and Humanities
    • 12th, Modern Languages
    • 69th, Management and Social Sciences
• ​​​Notable alumni include
  • ​CEOs and presidents of companies such as Hyundai, Samsung, LG, Daum
  • a former prime minister
  • Park Jin Young (founder of JYP Ent)
  • Luhan (do I need to tell you who he his?)
     
• ​Rivalry with Korea University
  • ​Located within the same city, campuses are only 30 minutes apart
  • Each year, various festivals are held before and after the friendship games between the two schools 
  • Since 1956, this annual Yonsei-Korea games is the most hotly contested university rivalry in the country
  • Five sports teams: football, rugby, baseball, basketball, and ice hockey teams compete against each other
  • A long running gag between the two universities is the order of the two universities; 
    • ​Yonsei University refers to it as the "Yonsei-Korea" rivalry (연고전 yeon-go jeon)
    • whereas Korea University refers to it as the "Korea-Yonsei" rivalry (고연전 go-yeon jeon)
  • ​After annual Yonsei-Korea games, students from both schools engage in the Train Game
    • ​They make a conga line then The Trains head to bars, stores, and restaurants to demand food and drinks for free (sounds like my kind of sport tbh) 

 ​(there's about 60 000 students in total, most of them will go to the football game)

 

4. Student Lifestyle: MTs and Free Time

Now that the boring stuff is out of the way, what do you do when you're not at school? Students are encouraged to join a club or society at their university, very much like high school, except in uni, you get to go on fun trips called MT (membership training) with those in the same major as you and your various clubs where you get to know your club-mates better through team building exercises and get very, very drunk. Apart from getting to know other freshman, MTs are also very important for bonding between younger and older students and establishing those precious senior-junior (sunbae-hoobae) relationships. Here's an extract from a cool blog on student life in Korea:

Students are stuffed into busses and carted away from the university to a pension or cottage where they spend two days and a night getting to know one another in a way that can only be facilitated by close sleeping quarters and the possible addition of alcohol. Games, songs, and talent shows make up the night’s entertainment with costumes, wigs, and some (not so) smooth dance moves to help students laugh at themselves and to break the tension that comes from hanging out with people you don’t know too well. By the next day the students are already way more relaxed, even as they do the work of cooking, cleaning, and packing up.

Many students find it hard to manage their new-found freedom in university, after leaving the soul-draining clutches of high school. Freshman play and party and have fun until they go broke and their grades drop, then reality hits and their study-ethic returns. Here's another extract about free time:

Students told me that they studied anywhere from two to seven hours per day outside of class, with class hours taking up eighteen to twenty-five hours each week. Students also said they didn’t have a lot of free time, which is no wonder considering their course load! For this reason few students take part-time jobs during the school year, and only a fraction more work during their vacation. While it is common in western countries for students to work part-time jobs during the school year and to work full-time during vacations, many Korean students told me that they prefer to study, volunteer, or intern with work related to their field, their future careers on their minds even during vacation. That being said, every student managed to find free time on the weekends, and watching movies, shopping, and playing computer games or sports were listed amongst the most popular hobbies, second only to “rest” which seems to a be a euphemism for sleeping late! 

I could keep going for another 1000 words but this is getting very long so I'll leave it here and save the other bits for later. But if you're still craving for more information (bless your brain), here are some handy links from which I copied and pasted most of this information.

1. Wikipedia
   • SNU (SNU homepage in English)
   • KU (KU homepage in English)
   • Yonsei (Yonsei homepage in English)
2. How to Survive in a Korean University
3. That cool blog post

Thanks for reading! This topic was suggested by 98dreamer. If you're curious about something but don't know where to start looking then hmu and I'll help you get started on your research! 

You may have noticed that my tone is totally different here than it was in the first chapter - I gave up on trying to sound sophisticated, I'm really just a huge nerd who uses internet slang irl so imma stop being fake now lmao. Stay tuned for next time when I stop using correct grammar all together and use memes throughout the whole entry :))))))))

I'd also like to mention that you'll once again have to wait about a month for an update because I have exams next week and my major work for English due soon afterwards, sorry for the inconvenience!