KOR 1010

I'll preface this by saying that the Professor for this class is excellent and does her best to make sure that everyone is able to do well in the class, and the best professor you could take for KOR 1010. That being said, please just test out of your foreign language requirement. This is not an easy A class by any means, nor easy at all in any way. It's also quite confusing and moves at an incredibly fast pace, which makes actually retaining information incredibly difficult without prior knowledge of Korean. This class demands a lot out of you by its nature and if you don't put in a strong amount of effort you will get left behind. You need a C minimum to take upper level languages and you can legitimately screw over your graduation if you don't study hard for this class. This class is very hard to fit into schedules because it meets daily (and has mandatory attendance), is quite punishing with its makeup policies, and you'll likely lose a ton of sleep for this class cramming for quizzes/tests due to the only remotely viable time block for the class being at 10am. This ended up being subjectively the hardest class I've taken at this university in the same schedule as upper level computer science classes and I'd genuinely never recommend taking it because of the sheer amount of commitment required. If you have to take it though, I'd recommend taking it with Prof Yoon Hwa.

She was great instructor and a very nice person overall. As long as you show an interest in learning Korean, she is understanding. Vocab quizzes will vary from around 40 characters to 20 words, and overall it is a lot of work for a 4 credit class. I recommend her for people who have no Korean learning experience. She is very accommodating, and tries to ease learning anxiety. If you want to get ahead, purchase and read over some of the textbook beforehand. Get some practice with the characters and words. Confidence is a very important part of language learning. You will gain a good grasp of Korean if you take this class, and may even catch the language bug!

Professor Choi is amazing. She is such an intelligent and kind instructor. All the other people in my class that I knew loved her. The course is a very manageable introduction to the Korean language. I think the most challenging thing is just getting accustom to a new alphabet but the Korean alphabet is very straight forward you just have to memorize new characters. You quickly get used to it. We did regular vocabulary tests and workbook homework assignments. You have three lesson tests, which are just like unit tests kind of, and an oral exam that she gives you the questions for in advance. Our final project was a presentation but this semester in 1020 we are doing a video instead because some people expressed nervousness about presentations so I don't know if it has changed for 1010 too.

Korean with prof Choi Yoon Hwa was my favorite this semester! She was so nice and understanding and made every class enjoyable. If you're into Korean culture and have been for a while, you've probably picked up a little bit of basic Korean and this class definitely develops/refines those skills. Majority of the class, including myself, found this class easy as a result. (No koreaboos though, for the record.) I'm not sure how students without this exposure fared-- I think a few struggled a bit with memorization and pronunciation. The class consists of workbook assignments every week (recommended to complete early on but I usually procrastinated until the day before due and was fine), weekly vocab quizzes, short essays, and a final spoken presentation. All easy work as long as you're paying attention in class. She moves quick on slides, but most students seemed to pick everything up perfectly fine. I took the 10AM session and made it to every class, maybe almost coming in late twice, but definitely manageable with a lack of sleep. Take the 12PM session if you need to though-- attendance is required and very important. Overall, highly highly recommend. I learned so much in one semester! #tCFfall2021