ParagonIU Students Attending Summer School in South Korea

South Korea is not only famous for its pop culture and modern ways of living; higher education is also vital to South Korea, offering excellent opportunities to study at many prestigious universities. According to the World Top 20 Project, South Korea has the best education system in the world with a college graduation rate that reached 69% in 2016. Realizing the value and prestige of the Korean education system, Paragon International University has partnered with Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (HUFS) based in Seoul, South Korea to provide Cambodian students with opportunities to explore and obtain a truly quality education there. Because of this partnership, two ParagonIU students have already been awarded scholarships for a one-month summer program at HUFS. 

Mr. Seang​ Hay CHHENG, a ParagonIU student majoring in Business Administration and a participant who has just returned from the program said that, he attended the program with 250 other students from 32 different countries as the summer school wanted students to learn about diversity and different cultures. He was required to take classes, so he decided to choose “Social Media Marketing” and “Korean Traditional Music & Performing Art.” Besides classes, Seang Hay took tour visits arranged by the school to places such as Boryeong, a coastal city where students attended a mud festival, and the demilitarized zone, the border between South and North Korea. 

Mr. Kimhieng KEO who is also a Business Administration student at ParagonIU accompanied Seanghay and he shared his experience about the Korean classroom. The 21-year-old student said that the classroom environment in the summer program was highly competitive because the participants come from strong and highly credentialed academic backgrounds across the globe. Nonetheless, Kimhieng and his friend felt confident that they could compete with the other students as the two ZamanU students have also received a quality education at home. When it comes to coursework, Kimhieng was personally interested in assignments given by the professor who taught the “Social Media Marketing” class. Students were required to employ theories and strategies learned from the course and apply them to platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Pinterest, Snapchat and Twitter. At the end of the course, Kimhieng needed to present a report about how he implemented the strategies and whether he achieved the outcomes he wanted.

Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (HUFS) which hosted the summer program has a rich history and provides a quality higher education. The university was founded in 1954 and has contributed to the development of modern South Korea, having many diplomats and CEOs as its graduates. The university has also been the host for many lectures from distinguished and famous speakers such as President Barack Obama in 2012 and former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon in 2017. The campus is located in the eastern part of Seoul, 20 minutes by subway ride to Seoul’s Central Business District. HUFS provides a variety of degrees, the majority of which concentrate on foreign studies including Asian Studies, International Relations, English Literature, Foreign Languages with classes taught in English and/or Korean. For both Kimhieng and Seang Hay, the summer school was an opportunity to visit South Korea for the first time.