In this blog post, I reflect on how my university liberal arts courses transformed my way of thinking and my life. Explore how diverse knowledge and experiences broadened my horizons and shaped my values.
Everything has a beginning and an end. Once you start something, you inevitably head toward its conclusion. University life is no different. After dedicating your life up to that point to gain admission, you are headed toward graduation. How you conclude matters greatly, so graduating with good grades and accumulating sufficient credits often becomes the goal. To achieve this graduation, Seoul National University, and most departments within its College of Engineering, require a minimum of 130 credits. Considering a standard four-year graduation, this translates to a demanding schedule of over 16 credits per semester. After subtracting the required 50 credits for general education and around 60 credits for major courses, only about 15 to 20 credits, or five or six courses, remain. Following the courses offered by the university leaves only about five free elective courses until graduation.
Now in my sixth semester, I have taken 122 credits including this semester’s courses, 72 of which were general education credits. After subtracting the 50 required credits, I spent 22 precious credits on departmental and liberal arts courses—in other words, courses deemed ‘useless’. Yet I firmly assert that these courses provided me with things I couldn’t have gained from the other 100 credits of classes.
The courses I took over three years taught me diverse subjects across broad fields. Freshman seminars taught me about the human senses and how we perceive them. German and Latin classes taught me not only the structure of each language but also the foundations and histories built by each nation. Principles of Economics taught me economics as Homo Economicus, and further, the concepts individuals hold within society. Foundations of Ink Painting and Sketching taught me art and the depth it contains. The course on Politics and Political Ideologies fostered diversity, while Understanding Western Theater and Understanding Visual Arts taught me how to weave life into stories and stories into life.
It was truly an immense amount of information. It was more than a single semester’s worth of classes could cover. My existing foundation and the time available were insufficient to process it all. In fact, as a result, I failed to achieve particularly good grades in these liberal arts courses. Truthfully, this was a deliberate choice for depth, contrary to the trend of selecting easier courses for better grades to meet graduation requirements.
This choice was foreshadowed from my university entrance. Faced with the choice between Seoul National University and Pohang University of Science and Technology, the top institutions in science and engineering, I chose Seoul National University without hesitation. The reason for this choice was my fascination with Seoul National University’s status as a comprehensive university and its rich historical and humanistic foundations. This choice was never wrong.
Seoul National University’s liberal arts curriculum, spanning diverse fields like multiple foreign languages, arts and history, philosophy, and politics, is vast to a degree that is hard to find at a comparable level anywhere else in the country. This is the greatest advantage of being a comprehensive university and the largest university in the nation. The diversity of liberal arts courses available at Seoul National University—such as the nation’s only Swahili language course or archery classes taught by Olympic gold medalists—offers students unique opportunities. Learning not only from professors with long research careers but also from those excelling in practical fieldwork or creative activities was an invaluable experience. Not taking advantage of such diverse courses at this institution would have been a tremendous regret.
I realized that what I learned through diverse liberal arts courses during my university years wasn’t limited to mere knowledge acquisition. These courses shaped my way of thinking and expanded my perspective on the world. For instance, studying Plato’s Theory of Forms in a Western Philosophy class helped me understand that the real world isn’t composed solely of simple material existence. Furthermore, in Western theater class, I went beyond merely appreciating plays to deeply contemplate how human emotions and social interactions are expressed within the space of the stage. These liberal arts courses cultivated my ability to view things from diverse perspectives.
Last winter, a solo trip to Germany for two weeks made me realize this profoundly. On the streets, I fully experienced the unique sensibilities expressed in German—neither Korean nor English—along with the architectural styles displayed at numerous historical sites and the historical significance embedded within them. In art museums, I could faintly sense the painter’s mindset when creating their work. Through their food, tea, and wine, I glimpsed their culture. Passing newspapers and news reports revealed the values of people living in different historical contexts. All these things were minor details I would have overlooked without the liberal arts classes I’d taken up to that point, yet they suddenly came alive with vivid clarity.
These courses, which might seem to have begun somewhat impulsively, profoundly influenced my self-reflection. They were precious resources that kept me grounded when my rigid, boxed-in teenage life struggled to keep pace with the torrent of freedom that poured in during college. The direction of what to observe, what to gain, and how to organize it. These liberal arts courses helped steer the course of my life and will remain unshakable pillars in my future. To make them even more solid, I will never neglect taking liberal arts courses.
