Record students¡¯ sweat and endeavor – Story from WCYF Student Secretariats
 
 
2009/04/17

Joo, Dong-oh
Chief, External Affairs Team

Kim, Cho-rong, staff, WCYF Planning & General Affairs Team, wishes if she could have 30 hours a day. As a student, it is never-easy to carry out two things at once. ¡°All the time there is series of conflict between my two roles; as a student, and as a member of WCYF Student Secretariat,¡± said Kim. To make thing even worse, she lives with her family in Suwon, while her college is on Seoul campus. It means that she has to take a long journey of 2 hours, at least twice a day. ¡°Sometime I think that I was insane to apply for this WCYF Student Secretariat. However, now I got used to it and now I can say that I am more enjoying the job,¡± said Kim.

Kim is one of 40 students working for WCYF Students Secretariat. All the students were picked through series of interview and essay evaluation. ¡°There are absolute diversities even within this group. Some are undergraduate students, while some are graduates. Some have great English fluency while others have excellent work experience in the related field. We would say this is the best amalgam of talents from Kyung Hee University,¡± said Cho Sung-sik, Chief, Academic Affairs Team. Yes, as Cho mentioned each applicant was evaluated in multiple criteria, and each was assigned to each team based on his or her talents. ¡°Since we use English as our forum¡¯s official language many students might think that English is necessary for all student staff. However for us, English is nothing more than just a communication tool and what we valued more were the passion and their knowledge in related field,¡± said Kim Hyun, Advisory Professor of WCYF.

So far WCYF Student Secretariat has five subordinate teams; Planning & General Affairs, External Affairs, Public Relations, Academic Affairs, and Culture Event. Each team has 4~7 members with and two Advisory Professors. ¡°Basic rules are students plan, students decide, and students conduct. However since they are students and not full time workers, in some part they may find shortcomings or lack of ability. That is why we have Advisory Professors. They give advices and help both materially and morally,¡± explained Park.

Okay, following Park¡¯s explanation, it seems pretty sure that WCYF has air of students¡¯ autonomy. Then, how is the work felt like to student staff. Explains Chung Myeong-keun from Planning & General Affairs Team, ¡°We cannot say easy but I can surely say it is worthwhile. There is not much chance to participate in this kind of forum which is totally organized by students. Also, it is very fascinating thing to know various people from inside and outside.¡±

WCYF, expecting more than 200 foreigners and 500 domestic university students to come, is on its last stage to the success. From the very early stage of last October to reaping the valuable fruit in this May, not everything was nice and flew smoothly. The most difficult part? Here Academic Team Chief Cho reminds ¡°So far, the part that required the greatest effort was to draw the attention from abroad and within the nation. With relatively poor recognition about the forum, we worried if we would have enough paper applicants to fill all the session up. However, at the end of the proposal submission period, it was turned out that we have more than 700 applicants and we had to worry about how to evaluate them then.¡±

Within a month, the people will see the actual outcome of Students Secretariat¡¯s sweat and endeavor. Yet, these young leaders seem to be even more restless with mid-term exam on the one hand and final preparation of forum on the other. ¡°The most difficult time is yet to come. Participants will flush in from May 4th and we also have to take care of 150 volunteers. The point we can smile is the point forum declares the closing,¡± said Cho. Their long journey is about to be ended, and so far they have done better than expected. Cheers for WCYF, cheers for the young braves.