Sungkyunkwan University Summer School 2010

Sorry for the late blog. I have been busy with Summer School

This is 2nd time I am joining Sungkyunkwan University Summer School. 2 years ago was the first one and now 2010 it was the 3rd one. The program that SKKU offers is very good. The courses are interesting, the program is educative but also a lot of fun. There are many different nationalities, Dutch, German, Chinese, Korean, Americans, French and many more.

Hereby about my University, the Summer School

http://summer.skku.edu/



The theme of our 2008 SKKU International Summer Semester focused on the synergy of ¡®Culture, Business and Technology in East Asia¡¯. This was followed by our 2009 SKKU International Summer Semester which involved defining the fundamental issues around ¡®Sustainable GlobalProsperity¡¯. Future International Summer Semesters will build on these foundations while continuing on the path of becoming a center of thought-leadership and diversity within both East Asia and globally.
The 2009 SKKU International Summer Semester on ¡®Sustainable Global Prosperity¡¯ enrolled over 600 students from 41 countries and 96 universities. Our professors were recruited from world-class universities. Faculty and students had the opportunity to debate and define currentissues of this theme. Overall, our program was highly successful.
Ironically, the 2009 SKKU International Summer Semester theme of ¡®Sustainable Global Prosperity¡¯ was chosen a year in advance of the worst economic crisis since the ¡®Great Depression¡¯ of the 1930¡¯s. Certainly, the very idea of sustainable prosperity became an important one for our students who were confronted with the reality of diminished traditional opportunities. In spite of this, what emerged across this diverse and global student group was a sense of hopefulness, passion and quality of intellect.
We are beginning to see signs of economic recovery albeit weak. However, given the severity of the economic downturn and the predicted slow pace of recovery, this issue is likely to remain an area of great concern for the near to medium-term. This is mostly related to the need for global society to find alternative paths to prosperity, as we should not repeat past mistakes. Therefore, we have decided to pursue the timely and important theme of ¡®Recovery and Prosperity: Post Crisis and New Future¡¯ for our 2010 SKKU International Summer Semester.

The 2010 International Summer Semester at Sungkyunkwan University is unique in that this is the only summer program in Korea to focus on the theme of ¡®Recovery and Prosperity: Post Crisis and New Future.¡¯ We will offer participating students the chance to understand the local, regional, and global interplay involved in shaping the problems and opportunities that confront global society in the post crisis era. Our ultimate intent is to deliver to our students a world class program which is recognized as being internationally competitive.
Of course, presenting an integrated perspective remains a core goal of our program as it did in our previous summer semesters. This will be achieved through our professors¡¯ commitment to approaching problems from an interdisciplinary perspective and context based analysis on the main theme ¡®Recovery and Prosperity: Post Crisis and New Future,¡¯ and the 5 sub-themes: ¡®Recovery,¡¯ ¡®Post Crisis,¡¯ ¡®Prosperity,¡¯ ¡®The Future,¡¯ and ¡®East Asia.¡¯ Such a perspective is necessary given the fact that the post crisis¡¯ dilemmas severely threatening the prosperity of global society do not fit within the confines any one discipline.
In both the 2008 and 2009 International Summer Semesters, we actively sought to encourage diversity amongst our students and faculty. In doing so we created a learning context that allowed students to understand first hand how diversity can lead to new ideas if harnessed properly. Given the cultural dimension of problems facing global society, we will again seek to increase the level of diversity both to enhance cultural awareness and to understand its role in shaping the various dilemmas we face.