4. One of UIC’s greatest strengths is its immense diversity. Describe how your own personal background would add to UIC’s diversity and why your personal traits would stand out even in such a highly multi-lingual and multi-cultural institution.
From 6th grade to 9th grade, I attended an international school in Japan. Before moving to Japan, I had been poor at English or other languages and only contacted a little about foreign culture just through books and television. Consequently, at the beginning of the international school, I had trouble getting used to the environment because everything was strange to me and I could not understand what happened. However, as slowly getting used to school life, not only I started to develop my English and Japanese language
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When I lived in Japan, even though Korea and Japan seemed to be very similar in appearance, I realized a huge difference between two cultures. I have become interested in comparing and analyzing the societal aspects of Korea and Japan and could understand better the Japanese people and society. For further research, I joined the school club where I discussed current affairs with other students. I mostly focused on international issues, including issues in Japan. That got me into being concerned in not just their culture and society, but also in the relationship with Korea.
In order to prepare for UIC’s rigorous liberal arts education, I took humanities classes as an extra curricular activity in high school, where I took introductory courses of western and eastern philosophy along with the philosophy of science. From that program, I learned that the liberal arts is adjustable to all studies and provides a sturdy foundation to them. In order to jump into the oceans for the expert of the relationship between Korea and Japan, liberal arts education is mandatory to achieve the broader foundation of knowledge for
In the year 2000, right before the start of my 5th grade year, I moved to the Dominican Republic from the United States. My parents wanted to raise my sisters and me there. I had to start a new life, a new school, and make new friends. Making the transition from the United States to the Dominican Republic really wasn’t difficult because I spoke Spanish at home with my family. In fact, I was a good student, often earning honor roll and getting diplomas for having good grades. I moved back again to the United States in my junior year of high school, because my parents wanted me to go to college in the US. It wasn’t easy; I didn’t know anybody, I had to make new friends again, and I wasn’t familiar with the life over here. I only spoke a little bit of English, because I had spent many years taking classes in Spanish while in the Dominican Republic. To help me pick up the language again, I decided to take regular classes instead of english as a second language because I thought this strategy would help me learn more English and get accustom to the language.
In ancient civilization, a liberal arts education was considered essential for free people to take place in civic life; without them people would not be willing to disregard one's traditional values, and analyze a broad variety of arts, humanities, and sciences to create new opinions and ideas. In the 21st century many Americans are doubtful that liberal arts degrees are actually worth the cost of college. In his essay “The New Liberal Arts”, Sanford J. Ungar discusses seven “misconceptions” of liberal arts degrees in modern-day America.
A major issue for today’s colleges and universities is the increased diversity of students. Thoroughly define the term ‘diversity’. Also, discuss the implications that this increased diversity has for college and university academic and/or administrative leaders.
A crucial topic being debated on in today’s society is core principles and disciplines. When debated and discussed, these two immense topics bring up discussion on liberal art colleges and their education. “Liberal Arts” can be translated in many different ways depending on perspectives. So what exactly is a liberal arts college/education? Patrick Connelly states, “A liberal arts college is a college with an emphasis on undergraduate study in the liberal arts and sciences. It aims to impart a broad general knowledge and develop general intellectual capacities for students” (Pg.18). Students who attend liberal art colleges experience broad and vast knowledge to create intellectual capacities that public universities will not provide. Essentially a liberal arts college gives a selected “Core” education to students to develop their skills and improve their weaknesses. Liberal arts are thought to be extremely necessary or very pointless depending on perspective. For example, two articles by two different authors explain liberal arts in a completely different way and opposite perspectives. The first
I built upon my cross-cultural experiences as I befriended exchange students from Belgium, Japan, and Korea. Each time, the friendships enriched my appreciation and understanding of not only my own culture, but the very concept of culture. What falls under the cultural blanket can vary from person to person, and I found it to be very interesting that while one person could claim lan...
I remember moving to a new school and not knowing the language. Students helped me learn French and it seemed so hard at first. Sometimes, students did not always teach me the nicest things to say, such as profanity, but everything was fun and new. Teachers were very nice and understanding due to the fact that I ...
South Korea Sociocultural Report South Korea is a country in East Asia, on the southern half of the Korean Peninsula. To the north, it is bordered by North Korea, with which it was united until 1945 (Oberdorfer, 1997).To the west, across the Yellow Sea, lies China, and to the southeast, across the Korea Strait, lies Japan. By far the largest city is the capital, Seoul. Approximately one-third of the country’s population lives in or near the capital (Cordesman, 2002). The population is overwhelmingly ethnic Korean; roughly half are non-religious, with the remainder divided between Christians and Buddhists.
1945 marked the end of World War II and the end of Japan’s reign in Korea. Korea had been under Japanese rule since the Japan-Korea Annexation Treaty in 1910. During this time, Korea had been brutally treated by Japan. The Korean language was suppressed as well as traditional Korean culture. Japan forced Korean people to take Japanese surnames and took many “comfort women” otherwise known as sex slaves for the Japanese military. As a result, the diplomatic relations between Korea and Japan were strained. Japan was determined to forget the past and deny many of the things that happened while Korea was determined to not move past it. There have been disputes between the two countries about acknowledging comfort women and territories, many sprouting up from World War II and before. While there has been improvement, the relationship between Japan and Korea is strained, mainly due to Japan’s unwillingness to remember and apologize for the past and Korea’s stubbornness to not move on from the past.
A liberal arts education also prepares students to fish, to think critically. I place great value on a liberal arts education. Moreover, I actively support it by maintaining print and digital collections to serve the University community. Not only do these collections accommodate campus research needs, but they nurture the desire for knowledge, inspiration, and enlightenment - hopefully creating life-long learners in the process. It would be an honor to continue supporting Western’s liberal arts educational values on a larger scale.
Chung, C & Brockman, V, ‘Introduction to Korean Society, Culture, and Politics’ in East Asian Social Movements, J Broadman & V Brockman (eds), Springer Publishing, New York, 2007. Dong-Choon, K, ‘The great upsurge of South Korea’s social movements in the 1960s’, in Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, vol. 7, no. 4, 2006. Kim, C ‘Moral Imperatives: South Korean Studenthood and April 19th’, in The Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 71, no. 2, May 2012.
Western Washington University (2011). US / Japan culture comparison. Retrieved February 9, 2014, from www.wwu.edu/auap/english/gettinginvolved/CultureComparison.shtml
South Korea, once a broken country filled with broken families, has transformed itself into a fine example of perseverance in a tough situation. South Korea and its neighbor to the north have developed past where they were before the Korean War, but in different ways. The two countries, while certainly dependent on each other, are vastly different. Their conflicting styles of government and their differing cultures speak for themselves in this case. South Korea has, over the years, changed dramatically from the crippled country of the Korean War into a blossoming beacon of Asian cultural and economic changes. The combination of its recent economic importance, its heavy cultural influence, and its constant danger of participating in a war makes South Korea one of the most influential countries in the world.
The importance and roles that culture has played throughout history has evolved since the beginning of time and has changed over the centuries, greatly influencing nations, specifically North Korea. North Korean society is regarded as mysterious, simply due to their cultural and idealistic values differing significantly from other countries. By exploring
In this interview Ben Bagley asks Theresa Han about the difference between Korean and American culture. Theresa is a teenager who recently moved to the United States so she has an excellent perspective for understanding the differences and similarities between these countries.
...ussions on Japan’s history, we can now understand why Japan’s emperor remains a significant figurehead in modern Japanese society. Finally, due to our examination of Korea’s colonized past; we now have a clearer indication as to the reason behind their modern day divide.