SNU courses

Shall stick a wordy post in between all the image-heavy posts hahaha

Since it's already the end of Week 11 here in SNU (!!!!!), it's about time I talk about my courses I guess. And also give comments since I've been exposed to the courses for at least 10 weeks now haha


Previously I briefly talked about the courses I'm taking in a post about my SNU school life. I mentioned how my timetable was like (3 day week, with school from Tuesday to Thursday!) but now I'm gonna go in-depth about each course!

Courses that I'm taking:

Major/Core

Social Statistics

Contemporary Religions (I mapped back as a sociology module because it is taught in a sociological perspective!)

Electives (all Unrestricted Electives/UEs cos I've already fulfilled the other requirements)

Topics in Western History (basically African history)

Politics & Society

Two Koreas (Korean history)

1. Social Statistics

This course is one of the harder courses I'm taking here in SNU, in my opinion. Workload wise, there seems to be an assignment due every week - and I got super confused about the assignment due dates cos the TA kept changing them -_- and then he posted an announcement that I didn't receive so I handed one of my assignments in late sigh. (Up till now I still don't know/can't figure out why I didn't receive the notice haha) Also, added difficulty is that the TA conducts practice sessions (where we try out Excel/SPSS exercises) in Korean so I can't understand or keep up in class sometimes haiz.

Also there's a group project that seems really tedious...and this extra credit module that apparently everyone seems to have done?! But I didn't lol and the deadline's over so oh well.

The students in Social Stats class study very very hard. I did ok/average for my mid-term and the prof seemed kinda disappointed when he handed me back my paper hahaha.


2. Contemporary Religions

Not exactly a Sociology module but I managed to map it back because even though it was under the Department of Religious Studies, it was taught in a sociological perspective! Anyway one of the easier modules, no mid-term/final term exam whoohoo only a 10 page term paper to do which is slightly difficult but nothing that can't be done.

And oh yes, tedious weekly reviews on the readings - but it's pretty easy, he just wants some insight and to be honest, the prof is really lenient...I wrote one of my reviews the hour before class started and did fine. Lol.

Oh one presentation on a week's reading to be done though! I'm doing mine with Kian and ours is during the last week of class haha because the prof pushed back some classes/changed the syllabus hahaha (and Kian would say "Lack of regulation!!").


3. Topics in Western History (African History)

VERY DIFFICULT. Avoid at all cost.

The mid-term was okay in the sense that the paper was set in true/false answer and MCQ with only one short reflection/response question but omg the classes are truly demanding and the prof is quite strict? She expects everyone to have a certain amount of knowledge that's why. But NO we don't and the readings are hard to digest and understand haha

Kian met some African friends studying full-time here in his other class and they talked about this class we're taking now - lol they took them in previous semesters and we all have the same grievances towards the class hahaha

Classes are hard, really hard. Haiz.


4. Politics & Society

Another one of the easier classes I guess? Conducted in "flick" lecture way lol so we watch assigned webcasts/online lectures before class and during class we ask questions and we have to take a short MCQ quiz every week. Seems kinda heavy but it's quite okay actually - except that the prof keeps bombing us with longer and longer webcasts each week -__-

But workload's fine, just need to watch the lecture and read the textbook (which I usually do during the Q&A session in class lol) and the quiz should be ok.

Only problem is that the prof tends to speak only in Korean, like he forgot that there are other foreigners (apart from those ethnically born Korean exchange students - there are a lot of them here!) so Konrad and I get lost in class and he doesn't really care lol ok also because we don't remind/tell him that we don't understand what he's talking about in Korean. But then again we don't pay attention to the Q&A sessions lol.


5. Two Koreas (Korean history)

Also one of my favourite classes because I enjoy learning about Korean history!! And this class isn't just about history but also the politics behind certain decisions, consequences, repercussions blah blah very interesting in my opinion. There are major themes we are doing and for each theme it's about 3 weeks, first week is content by the prof, second week is a Korean movie related to that theme, and third week is a presentation by students on the assigned readings.

Readings are important because they are tested in exams hahaha I didn't read any for the mid-term and had to rely on memory from presentations (but now I haven't been paying attention to student presentations lol GG)


Yup, the five classes that I'm taking in SNU right now...most of them are taking 6 classes - a lot of them took 6 and then dropped to 5 (me, I'm one of them haha except that I dropped my sixth class because I couldn't map it back). Hope mapping back classes goes well when we get back to Singapore haha. I can't afford (both time + moneyyyyy) summer school ㅠㅠㅠㅠ