A gripe about UC Berkeley's Department of East Asian Languages and Culture

I guess it's hard for me to say anything bad about this school since considering that I screwed up so much in high school that I feel I won the lottery by being afforded another chance to come to a top notch research university (by the way, one of my pledge bro's graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy). I guess that puts things into perspective. Getting into UC Berkeley was like winning the lottery -- though I would tease him about how we're both at the same school everytime he'd start to bring out the well, over at Exeter or that one time he Google Earth'd (verb?) his school...

Anyways, during spring break, I realized the younger child of my next door neighbor is also a UC Berkeley transfer student. His mom dragged him out. I was speaking to him in Korean as I'm guessing he immigrated to the U.S. during middle school or so -- these neighbors moved in when I was in Korea, so I never really met them.

And, we got to talking and he told me he's a Political Economy major, which I believe has a two year foreign language component. He told me he's taking Advanced Korean Literature or a course that I believe is past fourth year Korean. And, there was also a similar student, who I know speaks Korean fluently that is in that class as well. And, it reminded me. I have no gripes about Korean/Korean-American students taking advanced literature courses that they can't take since, well, they're not in Korea.

But, what does bother me is that considering how this department is so short on funding -- how little they do to get rid of students that take it simply to boost their GPA. Korean language courses are almost impossible to get into -- I took Intermediate Korean for a summer, but in my whole life I've taken just that and a quarter of Introductory Korean at Yonsei University and three days at Ewha University (to obtain a student visa -- which actually is what a fairly recent paper by professors at Yale argues: that international student flows are mainly vehicle of migration -- which I disagree with and, which my UG thesis will argue against). Anyways, there are a group of students -- those two excluded -- that take these courses to improve their grade point average. I was on the waiting list for 3rd year Korean -- before my schedule consisted of just math/stats/econ courses, but I couldn't get in as:

#1: The department is heavily underfunded, so there are just a few number of classes that are offered each semester.

#2: I would say, conservatively, at least a quarter to a fifth of the students were native Korean speakers. This is not a literature course, but a third year language course. I mean in class -- as it is 3rd year Korean -- no English is spoken, so if you're a native Korean speaker, then you look like a great student. But, apparently, there are these cards that I had to fill out (how relevant is this course to my major? -- none; I'm an econ/appl. math major) and while I was there I came to be in utter shock as I saw a group of students from the class talking in the Durant Building -- to get off the waitlist -- speaking in heavily accented English (and probably with a Republic of Korea citizenship), so they could be in the class with their friends.

Now, this is outrageous -- and not in the sense of let's say how it'd outrage Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, or Lou Dobbs (by the way, what on earth happened to this guy?), but in the way it'd outrage a normal human being -- genuinely. I'd love to have graduated from UC Berkeley with native fluency in Korean and, more importantly, the ability to do research in the Korean language.

I understand there are many incentives at UC Berkeley to encourage this type of behavior -- for one, distinction/higher distinction/highest distinction (or cum laude/magna cum laude/summa cum laude) is capped at a certain proportion here unlike at some of the Ivies... [I heard] Yale gives some type of distinction to half their undergraduate students... Well, they got only 4,000 of them anyways, and by the way, I did take Latin for a semester at junior college, so summa cum laude means "with highest (or maximum) praise." But, this is too much.

Exorbitant Privilege, Update

The term Exorbitant Privilege:

The exorbitant privilege is a term coined in the 1960s by Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, then the French Minister of Finance. It is generally misattributed to Charles de Gaulle. It refers to the benefit the United States had in the US Dollar being the international reserve currency: the US would not face a balance of payments crisis, because it purchased imports in its own currency (“Exorbitant Privilege” Brad DeLong’s Website).

I initially found this term on Wikipedia, but when I looked at the reference I saw that it was none other than Professor Brad DeLong, who wrote the definition. I took his courses, Macroeconomic Theory and the American Economic History (Econ 101B, 113 at UC Berkeley, respectively).

Breaking Down Borders: Korea, Fall 2009 Semester Update

The syllabus has been now been updated to include reading material required for the course to meet the requirements set by the Academic Senate. The syllabus can be found here, but is still subject to approval by the ASUC.

Breaking Down Borders: Korea, Fall 2009 Semester

I have just received word that both Professor Elaine Kim and the departmental chair of the Ethnic Studies department at UC Berkeley, have both signed off on there being another "Breaking Down Borders: Korea" class next semester. Now with just the approval of the Academic Senate, "Breaking Down Borders: Korea" will now be available this coming fall semester.

Provided there is enough room, although last semester, we actually had a waiting list for upper classmen, I welcome people to audit the course. In that, you just come in to participate and contribute to the discussion. The syllabus can be found here (I do realize there are quite a few typos).

Articles, such as, the one above is a good example of what will be discussed over the course of the fall semester.

Of Public Education, LSE

So, I started class on Monday… And, wow, was I in for a surprise.

The students at LSE’s summer school program…

“Generally, around two-thirds of applications come from full-time undergraduate students. The remaining third is made up of postgraduate and research students, and professionals from a wide variety of institutions and businesses” (Entry Requirements London School of Economics and Political Science).

When I walked into class on Monday, the page couldn’t be more wrong if it was describing just this class. I would guess that about half of the students are working professionals, if not more, and perhaps another quarter would be graduate students. If you look at it from an age perspective, I’d guess that with my twenty-seven years I’d be right around the middle or median. Nonetheless, unfortunately, for these working professionals (and perhaps for even some graduate students), just the fact that they have temporarily left the work force and are in effect re-entry students puts them at a huge disadvantage and will simply be – in my opinion – outgunned and outclassed.

Despite what many may say about the state of public institutions of higher learning, such as, the University of California, Berkeley, I took my intermediate economic theory courses from Professor J. Bradford DeLong and Associate Professor Stefano DellaVigna at Berkeley and I believe this puts me at a huge advantage. I feel, for the first time, in a very, very long time that I am very well prepared (those feelings about me taking multivariate calculus in 2001 have reversed itself).

You see, in those classes, we very thoroughly studied constrained optimization and particularly in Professor DellaVigna’s course, we even dealt with two different types of intertemporal optimization or optimization between differing time periods (which is exactly what the first couple problems we are studying are about …spend money now or save and spend it later… in the Money in Utility Function Models). But, most importantly, the professors at Berkeley didn’t leave out the math and almost all analysis on problem sets, midterms, and final exams were of the kind where students had to mathematically derive a model under certain assumptions and then see what happens in equilibrium.

At LSE, it is no different. The students here that are not familiar with these problems will I believe not be able to catch up in time for the first exam as the first exam is exactly a week away and the course itself is only three weeks long. When LSE says these courses are “intensive,” believe it.

Well, it’s not just working professionals you see. Tuesday was the first day discussion/seminar sections were held. There was this one American student that kept asking questions and who later said, “He studied all these things, but in the United States we don’t do derivatives.” While I did ask him what school he was from though (a small private school), but uncharacteristically, I didn’t say anything; I did start working on two thank you emails to the Professors at Berkeley though.

On a different note, if examined on an ethnic and racial basis, then I would say the course is very diverse – But, of course, for this statement to be true, you would have to first assume that the one and a half billion people living in Northeast Asia don’t exist (that is there are no Chinese, Koreans, or Japanese).

On the class roster, I recognized zero, that’s right, zero Korean surnames, and, perhaps, three Chinese surnames with no potential of any of them being Korean (*ahem* except for mine of course). I also recognized one Japanese surname, but that’s the professor’s.

This is going to be an interesting couple weeks and I’m so curious as to the type of backgrounds that some of these students have. I also briefly spoke with a graduate student from the University of Naples and a Danish lady (isn’t a Danish a type of cake with frosting on top?) in her mid thirties, I’m guessing, who thought the course would help her find a better job.

At any rate, public universities do need massive assistance and I believe this is something that will need to find a solution for universities, such as a UC Berkeley to remain competitive with private universities.

Korea is not as cool as Japan.

So, in the summer of 2007, I took an intensive 10-week "intermediate Korean" language course at UC Berkeley -- why I just didn't go to Yonsei University through the study abroad program I have no idea (It's cheaper to study at Yonsei University and financial aid covers the program no differently than if students were to have taken it here). By the way, despite the fact that California is what the Economist calls “The ungovernable state,” California offers her students so many opportunities to receive higher education that I am oh so, very proud to be a "native Californian" and attend a university known as "Cal." More so, after glimpsing overseas into a life as an illegal without a high school diploma in a country that values higher education religiously to the point where on College Entrace Exam Day,

"...while students are taking the listening portions of the tests, planes can't land or take off at the nation's airports" (Wall Street Journal).

I think the system here at California is incredible with its three tier, community college system, California State University system, and, of course, the University of California system, where pretty much, anybody that wants to learn could. By the way, this for me is basically the single best argument against those that argue for a minimum wage that is also a "liveable wage." I'd think raising incentives to go back to school or providing more financial support to those would provide much, more tangible benefits (I'd like to have a link here, but I don't).

Rather than raising minimum wages (and in exchange ensuring that a select few will lose their jobs -- again, akin to what I call the "carpool-lane-syndrome"), make it easier for people to go back to school and give them the financial support necessary to do so. While I am a recipient of much financial support from both government and family, I know a lot of others aren't. I think I will be living proof of that as I obtained my diploma from an adult school at twenty-five and am about to graduate from the University of California, Berkeley at twenty-eight. After that, I hope to be a very productive and contributive member of society.

More so, since as they say Cal is the flagship university of the University of California system (though I think UCLA has a slightly bigger endowment and a better basketball team, which, of course, will and should change over the long run), there are a lot of other schools to choose from in between... And, there's the private schools as well -- which brings up another point about how public universities need to get more financial support from alumni(a parallel argument about Korea follows).

But, anyways, while I was taking that Korean language course at Berkeley, there was only one "American" student in the class with American being used here in what I believe to be a very historical sense of the word, where being "American" meant white and male. Once a week, we'd watch movies or media in a different classroom, where a Japanese language course preceded our course at times -- I noticed that almost the entire Japanese language class was white.

So, I see a problem.

Why is it that there isn't more interest in Korea ? I mean, I understand. Mandarin Chinese is understood to be useful for business since after all China within the next couple decades will boast the largest economy (at least along a PPP measure, number of automobiles sold, internet users, etc). Japanese could also thought to be useful for business as Japanese savings makes up for roughly half the world's savings (I wish I had this link as well). But, more over, I get this feeling that Japanese is seen as cool and, me being, you know, Korean-American feel that it isn't. Some of this I blame on Koreans and their lack of confidence in their own country so far as I doubt those of Japanese descent reading this would take what I just wrote very seriously and would probably take what I just said to be a compliment (Consider South Korean reaction to Korean culture getting some good, quality exposure when Rain (비) was mentioned in the Colbert Report). To those Koreans that still don't agree or haven't seen it yet, watch the video and then read this.

And, then there's Korean, which I feel provokes, a "Ehhh...." feeling. Japanese, you understand, was an enemy of this country not too long ago and even in sixth grade I remember widespread distrust and angst against the Japanese in popular American culture. Remember the movie/book, Rising Sun? Well, it was about the Japanese trying to take over the United States by economic means (Although, Sony does own a chunk of Hollywood and Japanese investors did purchase the Rockafeller Center in New York at point. Not sure if that's really taking over the country. I would think this trade imbalance - minus the angle from Americans losing jobs on a large scale - is more of a neo-colonial system where Americans get to enjoy all these great products from all over the world at dirt cheap prices).

Anyways, I think those of Korean heritage that have grown to be rich or influential, such as actors, scholars, and owners of giant conglomerates, such as Samsung, have a duty to advertise the country or at the very least make sure that public univerisities have the funding to provide classes on the Korean language. University of California was about to cut Korean language courses last year at Los Angeles and Berkeley and was also about to eliminate the Korean Studies minor at Berkeley.