Before 2005, those who wanted to be doctors or dentists would graduate from high school and enroll in a university’s college of medicine/dentistry. That was the only way to become a doctor or dentist, as there was no graduate school of medicine/dentistry; if someone majored in something else in college but decided that he wanted to practice medicine, he would simply have to take college entrance exams and become an undergraduate medical student again.

This changed when the Ministry of Education decided that doctors/dentists should be educated in graduate schools. Adhering to a law that came into effect in 2005, about 1/3 of the nation’s medical colleges switched to graduate schools, 1/3 decided to remain undergraduate, and the rest divided its medical department into a college and graduate school. SNU followed the last example, enrolling 60 students to the College of Medicine and about 60 to the Graduate School of Medicine every year.

When the Ministry of Education decided to change its medical/dental education system, it was on the grounds that this would enable students from various fields to integrate their studies into medicine. However, this caused serious side effects: as the medical profession is highly desired, a great number of talented students in the engineering departments and natural science departments went to medical/dentist schools, thus hollowing out graduate schools in such departments. This phenomenon ultimately led about 80% of medical schools to decide to return to medical colleges, whereas about 70% of dental schools followed to do so as well.

In the case of medical school, SNU also decided to switch back to medical college, with effect from 2015. However, the dental department decided otherwise. On June 28th, the dental department officially notified the SNU administration office about its decision to remain a graduate school. This is because the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (formerly the Ministry of Education) announced that it would cut the dental department’s admission quota in half for those Universities that switch back to dental colleges. The ministry argues that since half of the current admission quota for dentistry schools was granted to enroll graduate students only, it should be forfeited when the school goes back to a college. CHOI Soonchul, dean of the School of Dentistry, said in an interview, “We decided to keep the current graduate school system under the consideration that, if we can admit only admit 45 students per year (the current admission quota is 90 students), our department will suffer a decline in teaching and researching standards.” The dental department had formerly announced that it would return to the dental college, which was overruled by this final decision.

Whether the undergraduate system or graduate school system is better is hard to say. Anyway, with the nation’s most prominent education institute maintaining its current system, dentistry remains to be an attractive career option for the current university students. This is true especially for freshmen who have a high chance of graduating after 2015, when most dental schools will have returned to undergraduate colleges. They will still have a chance to be educated at SNU even after 2015, without having to take the college entrance exams again. “Even though I’m not thinking about becoming a dentist right now, it’s nice to know that studying at SNU School of Dentistry is still an option,” said Jung Jiwon, a freshman at the College of Engineering. “Since people usually decide their careers after college, I think that leaving the School of Dentistry a graduate school is a good idea. Despite the fact that it costs more to get into Graduate Schools, we should have a chance to choose our occupations after we become college students,” she also added.

Written by KIM Jaeseung, SNU English Editor   ?
Reviewed by Eli Park Sorensen, SNU Professor of Liberal Studies
Proofread by Brett Johnson, SNU English Editor