When you stay in a foreign country for a long period of time, it is natural to seek people from your own cultural or national background. They form a community and comfort each other during occasional bouts with homesickness. This community also functions to organize and celebrate national holidays and festivities. An example is the Indian student association that embraces students from Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan. They celebrate Indian Independence Day and Diwali annually.
In order to achieve its goal of joining the ranks of top 20 world universities by 2020, POSTECH is doing its best to realize campus globalization. POSTECH provides the foreign students a welcoming community so that they would feel less homesick and have a unique experience of Korean culture. A part of its effort is establishing the International Student and Scholar Service (ISSS). The effort it is making is truly plausible. However, are the foreigners getting enough service in administrative procedures in areas such as reserving a place for their traditional festivities celebration?
When it comes to reserving facilities, your intuition would tell you to go to POVIS. However, that is not how it works. For Korean students especially those in need of a place for a club performance, they first have to fill out a form describing the nature of the occasion. They then have to submit it to the Office of Student Affairs. They will review the description and reserve the requested location if the event is approved as appropriate.
If it is counter-intuitive even for Korean students, how complicated would it be for foreign students? Is there a method to inform them of this? When this Postech Times reporter contacted both Student Affairs and ISSS, they both seemed to be unclear of what the exact procedure should be for foreigners since it has never been brought to their attention.
Fortunately, they do have a protocol from now for foreigners wanting to reserve a school facility to hold a function. First they should reserve the location online through POVIS, and then inform the ISSS of the description of the event. Unless it is wildly against school rules, they will be approved. This incident ended with a positive result thanks to a swift action taken by the ISSS.
However, there may be more ‘holes’ in the administrative process due to miscommunication or simple obliviousness. Some may view this matter as trivial, but it could leave a very grudging impression of POSTECH on the foreigners. Directing a lot of its revenue towards providing services to foreigners is plausible, but paying attention to little things and filling up these ‘holes’ that affect daily lives of foreigners could bring just as much effects. After all, leaving a good impression is a great way of publicity and it can only be an addition to a step toward globalization.
