The matriculation ceremony of the 2018 academic year freshmen brought in tremendous changes to the campus, as previously announced. Freshmen could defer choosing their major for a significant amount of time. Due to that, departments have been working to adjust their curriculums for the freshmen. Even though innovative improvements were made, most of it was aimed for the newcomers; thus, the former students of POSTECH were irrelevant to the modifications.
However, some new policies made it through and are influencing some Postechians. The newly introduced English Program will be partly applied. Students will still be following the English Certification System (ECS), unlike freshmen, but some new policies will be applied. The Division of Humanities and Social Sciences (HASS) announced it through the Student Notice Board on Feb. 13 that from 2018, official English test grades will be recognized for students before their fifth semester. The official English tests are TOEFL iBT, OPIc and OPIc Writing, and TOEIC Speaking and Writing. In case of TOEFL Practice Online tests (TPO), tests taken in the campus during freshmen orientation will only be accepted. Students’ scores will be applied when they submit their scores to HASS division office located at room 401 of Hogil Kim Memorial Building. Students with eighty or higher iBT scores will be exempted from ECS level four. Students with ninety or higher scores can skip level three, and students with three-digit scores can graduate level two. Other tests’ scores also have their equivalent levels.
Since all freshmen will be taking TPOs for their English placement tests in campus before their matriculation from now on, students willing to take the tests can do so with them at a fee of 41,000 KRW. Or, they can take the official tests at their own expense. Also, Professor Kweon Soo-Ok, the coordinator of the English course of POSTECH, emphasized that the TOEIC test and TOEIC Speaking and Writing tests are totally different. She made clear that TOEIC is not accepted and warned not to apply for the wrong test. Also, she re-emphasized that the new policy will only be affected to students before their fifth semester. Students who already studied five or more semesters aren’t affected.
Even though the policy was announced through the student notice board, a lot of Postechians weren’t properly informed about the issue. The announcement was made during vacation as an attached file – thus being unsearchable with the keyword ‘English’ via Povis. After the semester started, posts questioning the exact contents of the new policy was constantly posted in anonymous boards. The Division of HASS noticed this problem and re-announced it again on March 8.
The Division of HASS now anticipates that conventional problems regarding English lectures will be diminished. Previously, English lectures were hard to attend, for the number of classes were limited, but everyone on campus had to attend in order to graduate. Thus, course registration was finished in less than a second, forcing some students to take summer or winter sessions for English, or postpone their graduation. Now, with the lectures reorganized and an alternate way permitted, students will have more alternatives to consider when designing their future.
