In order to facilitate ever increasing foreign students and professors on campus, Seoul National University has launched the Global Information Center as of March 2008. The Center provides foreigners with manifold information, curtailing the need to wander around helplessly. It is located on the first basement floor of Building D-500, Department of Natural Sciences, which can easily be recognized by A Twosome Place. Service can also be reached at 02-880-4447.

The newly operating Global Information Center covers just about everything one needs from the moment of entering Korea through till departure including information on academic guidance, visa related matters and housing as well as childcare. Before the commencement of this Center, the Office of International Affairs had offered aid for foreigners at an administrative level and individually allocated Korean buddies helped out with daily problems. While foreign students with buddies expressed satisfaction with the overall service, complaints arose from faculty members who only had occupational assistants in the office to rely on. Regarding the previous situation, the Global Information Center aims to expand the support to a level where foreigners, especially faculty members, can feel free to drop by and ask for a hand on even miscellaneous businesses.

In addition to extensive personal support, the Center differentiates itself in that it provides services not only in English but in seven different languages including Chinese and Russian. A detailed manual titled is soon to be available in various mother tongues. It shall include useful information on- and off- campus: where to dine, where to shop, how to switch your driver's license to a Korean one and so on.

The Global Information Center is supported by volunteers composed of students and staff who know the ins and outs of SNU through their own experiences. Fluent speakers of various languages are on standby to answer phone calls and greet personal visits.

SNU currently nests 2,300 foreign students including researchers and 45 foreign professors, not counting language lecturers. SNU will recruit 50 more faculty members throughout the year 2008 and will increase the number of foreign students to 10,000 by the year 2020.

31st March 2008
SNU PR Office
Translated by SNU English Editor