Foreign students give their two cents on joining university clubs

For foreign students living in Korea, student clubs might be hard to find and join due to language or cultural barriers. Still, there are ways to find communities that can give all students a meaningful college life.

A Culinary Crème booth at a school event on the Yonsei University Songdo Campus, held during the first semester of 2022. [PELINE AKAYA]

School clubs are places where students can find community, but for foreign students living in Korea, student clubs might be hard to find and join due to language or cultural barriers. Still, there are ways to find communities that can give all students a meaningful college life.

For foreign students, college clubs are a good way to make new friends, get used to campus life, and find a sense of belonging and purpose during their stay in Korea.

To hear from some university students and their experiences of joining, founding, and leading student clubs and associations, the Korea JoongAng Daily met with three students: Pelin Akaya, a senior at Yonsei University, Cynthia Chen, a junior at Yonsei University, and Shiyu Zhang, a senior at Seoul National University.

Q. Please introduce the club or association you are a part of. How did you come to join it? What is the club like?

Students on a Culinary Crème restaurant tour [PELIN AKAYA]

A. Akaya: Our club, Culinary Crème, was founded in 2020 by me — I have been the president of the club since then — and my friend, who is no longer part of the club. Our club started as a cooking and baking club and is now continuing on with activities which are a mix of baking and dining. We accept anyone and everyone from our school who wants to be a part of our club, which means that we don’t have any requirements, auditions or interviews. We have activities such as picnics, restaurant visits, baking classes and so on. Sometimes, we also have activities such as going to Everland together so that our members can bond with each other, or sometimes we hold movie nights to have a relaxing time with others. In our activities, we like to include anything that involves food, and we want to share our passion for food with others.

Chen: I am currently the vice president for the Underwood International College [UIC]'s Student Ambassadors [SAM], where we create content revolving around UIC for our social media platforms. I joined the club since I really enjoy socializing and any occasion that can give me a creative platform. SAM mainly manages the school’s social media accounts and promotes UIC to aspiring Yonsei students, as well as updates information on school scenes and events to current students. SAM consists of three divisions: journalism division, graphic design and photography division, and the YouTube division.

Zhang:I am currently a member of Triple-H, Seoul National University’s only hip-hop and vocal club. It is a club that practices and performs many genres such as ballads, R&B and hip hop. We sing both cover songs and original songs, which we write and arrange on our own. We perform together as a team. In addition to regular performances, we perform in school festivals and other venues, and also record music. I'm in the vocal category and I sing a lot of R&B and pop songs because I like these genres, and I also feature in hip-hop songs. I also performed at our school festival as a representative of the club.

How was your experience of searching for clubs to join?

Triple-H’s 2019 Spring Regular Performance [SHIYU ZHANG]

Akaya: I had a hard time searching for clubs in my university, and that was mainly due to the fact that most of them are only announced in Korean and hold auditions. I did have a list of clubs I wanted to join, such as a musical theater club, dance clubs and so on. However, the aforementioned factors and the Covid-19 pandemic made me give up on those dreams. I did face difficulties due to the language barrier as well. Although I would say that I am fluent in Korean, I had a hard time going through the audition processes for clubs. The pandemic also led to fewer clubs and a general unawareness of how to find them.

Chen: In terms of searching for clubs to join, it was a little bit more difficult in the beginning as I entered amid the Covid-19 pandemic. I only knew about SAM through the freshman group chat, or else I would not have even known that the club existed. I think it was more of a spontaneous decision because college already seemed to be very busy with schoolwork and socializing. I wasn’t sure if I was capable of taking on a club outside my academics. Additionally, the concern of participating online during the pandemic didn’t seem very feasible, considering SAM is a promotional club that requires much active participation. As for the difficulties, the language barrier was definitely one of them. There was also a lack of promotion toward the UIC branch of the university. Since the bigger sports teams and extracurricular clubs were conducted mainly by normal Yonsei students, it was unlikely for them to specifically [promote to] the UIC people and do individual promotions.

Zhang: I major in piano, but I have loved to sing since I was a child, so I knew I wanted to join a club related to singing before I was admitted to college. Originally, I was going to join a band that my friend recommended, but then I came to know Triple-H, which had become famous due to the Seoul National University-Hanyang University competition. I then became more familiar with it through the school’s club fair and decided to sign up. At first, I had no idea how to sign up, but I found a lot of information by searching through YouTube and asking my seniors. It’s not that I didn't worry about the language barrier at all. I was very worried when I filled out the application form and during the interview, but the club executives took good care of me, so I was able to audition more comfortably than I expected.

Did joining a club help mitigate the problems you experienced hunting for clubs?

Chen:I think it definitely did. As vice president of the club, it also allows me to get in touch with other UIC clubs, and we help them promote their clubs on our page at the start of the semester as well. Overall, it gave me more ways to access information about the school and more engagement in school updates and announcements.

Zhang: It's not easy for foreigners to find information, no matter how much they search for clubs on their own. Still, if you are brave enough to ask your university seniors or search for keywords on YouTube, you will find a lot of valuable information.

What problems, if any, do you still experience in being part of or leading the club?

An Underwood International College student ambassadors meeting [CYNTHIA CHEN]

Akaya: To be honest, starting and leading a club from scratch brought many problems with it. It was, and it still is, hard to motivate people to join the events, reschedule activities, find available locations, and so on. I would say the hardest part of leading a club is trying to balance my own studies and work with club activities. I also have a hard time finding a balance between being a competent leader and being bossy. I think being a leader always brings forth this issue since you have to be assertive at times to perform the role. However, thankfully, I have always encountered people who were understanding and tried their best to help me out with the club.

Chen: I believe that our biggest difficulty is the lack of participation on the university’s side. As I previously stated, we do have a lot of flexibility and creative freedom, but, then again, there are certain things that we need to double-check with the school before posting, especially regarding school admissions and other administrative information. We wouldn’t want to misguide our audience or give them false information. However, our advising professor and our management head, who is also the UIC admissions officer, are extremely busy. It is thus difficult to get out information quickly. This is definitely a part I believe could be fixed if the school would value the club more as well as assign another advisor that could step in when the admissions officer is too busy. This would help improve the efficiency of the club and help the club grow its platforms and build up its credibility as well. Zhang: I've made a lot of good memories during my time at the club, and I've never experienced any difficulties. I’m very thankful to the club members who took good care of me. No matter what club you are in or what activities you participate in, I think you can do well if you trust yourself and work hard. I hope international students won’t worry too much about their status as a foreigner or the language barrier. Everyone is precious and shines in their own way, so I think they should do their best to enjoy every moment.

BY STUDENT REPORTER AAMNA SHEHZAD [kjd.kcampus@joongang.co.kr]