Constructing Student Mobility by Stephanie K. Kim

Author:Stephanie K. Kim
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Higher education; universities; education; students; global; international; international students; student mobility; mobility; migration; California; Berkeley; South Korea; Korea
Publisher: MIT Press

She was able to enter Yonsei as a student at Underwood International College (UIC). At roughly $12,000 per year, UIC tuition was significantly cheaper than what an international student would pay at most universities in the United States, where Seunghui would also incur costly living expenses. In fact, UIC prominently touts its cheaper tuition compared to universities in the United States, as opposed to its higher tuition compared to the rest of Yonsei, as a way to advertise itself as an attractive alternative to US-bound students like Seunghui.

As I discussed in chapter 3, UIC also served as a catchall destination for South Korean students who sought admission into a selective university in South Korea through unconventional means. Like Seunghui, a number of students whom I met had been preparing to go abroad to the United States but changed course for one reason or another. Equipped with only their SAT and Advanced Placement exam scores, they had little choice but to enter an American-style college like UIC that would accept them on that basis. Others, like Yuri, whom I also introduced in chapter 3, never intended to go abroad at all but were drawn to the college’s liberal arts curriculum as well as its affiliation with a selective university in South Korea. In fact, Yuri even mentioned that her first choice was to study in the art history department at Seoul National University, an even more selective university than Yonsei, but that she did not gain admission there. She accepted her offer at UIC, both because of its unique curricular offerings and because it served as a strategic admissions pathway into Yonsei.

In this way, UIC presents both a novel choice and a de facto alternative for students like Seunghui and Yuri. They sought out an international college as much for its American-style curriculum as they did because their prior education positioned them at an advantage to enter. On the one hand, Yuri gained admission into a selective university in South Korea by studying in an experimental learning environment that intrigued her. Her first choice may have been to join a traditional department at an even more selective university, but she still found a great opportunity at Yonsei that capitalized on her English fluency and preparation at a foreign language high school. On the other, Seunghui had wanted to go abroad for a long time. Her rigorous high school curriculum prepared her to do so but also precluded her from entering a South Korean university through the typical avenues. When life circumstances unexpectedly changed her plans, the rigidly prescribed admissions tracks in South Korea left her with few options. But UIC offered her the American-style learning environment for which she had been preparing as well as an alternative means through which to attend a selective university in South Korea. These two students may have had different motivations, but the comparable ways they arrived at UIC reflect the limited choices they were presented with as each made a calculated decision to enter a novel pathway into a selective university without having to leave South Korea.

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