Korea University: Korea University is transforming core general education to strengthen competencies for the Fourth Industrial Revolution
Korea University has broken down the boundaries between the humanities and high-tech disciplines and established a number of core general education courses in a convergence curriculum. In the face of today’s great digital transformation, the plan is to go beyond what is learned from distinct majors and equip talented people with both high-tech capabilities and humanities literacy to lead the future society.
From the spring semester of the 2022 academic year, Korea University is launching a Digital Innovation and Humanity program within the university’s core general education courses, with eleven convergence courses that can simultaneously equip students with future technological capabilities and humanities literacy.
The convergence curriculum includes new subjects such as ethics in artificial intelligence society, artificial intelligence & human being, IT and social norms, virtual reality and culture, algorithms, and digital governance.
Core general education courses are compulsory courses that Korea University students must complete for graduation. The focus is on providing students with basic skills, apart from courses within their major. The new Digital Innovation and Humanity program was formed with the purpose of nurturing creative and convergent future experts in line with rapidly changing social trends.
Through the reorganized core general education courses, students are expected to establish a new relationship between humans and technology in a future society based on advanced science and technology and acquire a wide range of knowledge that will help them play a leading role in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
With these new courses, students have a wider choice of general education courses. While around 50 courses are typically offered in general studies every semester, the new courses brings the total to 66 offerings for the Spring 2022 semester: an increase of 47% from the 45 courses offered in the previous semester.
KU’s different departments have responded positively to the new program. The School of Business, for example, has revamped its curriculum to require students to take at least one of the general education courses in the newly established Digital Innovation and Humanity program before graduation. Korea University will continue to fortify convergence education, including liberal arts education, so that students can acquire core competencies in response to social change.
Sohn Joo-kyoung Dean of the Institute for General Education, remarked, “In the coming society, graduates from any field not only need preparation for the era of data science, but must also have humanities literacy. This reorganization of Korea University’s core general education represents educational innovation in that it opens general education that cultivate humanities convergence competencies along with future technologies.”