[Part 4] The Ultimate Guide to Korean Universities: Hakbeon Culture, Student Life, and the Korean Campus Experience

■ [Korea Study Abroad Guide for International Students, Part 4]
The Hidden Secrets of the K-Campus:
Late Graduation by Global Standards and Korea’s Unique “Hakbeon” DNA

→ In the previous three parts, we explored the distinctive campus landscapes of Korean universities, women’s universities, and the surprising realities behind universities founded by religious organizations.

→ Now that we have looked at the external appeal of Korean universities,
it is time to take a closer look at the real lives of the Korean college students who keep these campuses moving.

→ One of the things that surprises international students the most when they first step onto a Korean university campus is the culture surrounding “age” and “hierarchy.” Why are there so many classmates in the same lecture hall who are much older than you? And why does “hakbeon,” or the year a student entered university, often matter more than age? Let’s take a closer look at the fascinating culture behind this and the broader growth story of South Korea.

The campus of Kookmin University in Seoul, illustrating Korean university culture, student life, and the unique campus environment experienced by domestic and international students.

© Korea Tourism Organization Photo Korea – Kookmin University – Park Seong-geun

●🟦✓ A Country Where Undergraduate Students Tend to Graduate Later Than in Many Other Parts of the World: Why Korean College Students Are Older

▶ One of the things international students often find most surprising when they arrive on a Korean campus is that even students in the same year,
or the same cohort, can vary widely in age, ranging from their mid-to-late 20s to even their early 30s.

→ In many countries, college students often graduate around the ages of 22 or 23. In South Korea, however, students tend to graduate later than in many other parts of the world because of the country’s unique social and cultural background. The five interesting reasons are as follows.

① The Culture of Trying Again for the University You Want: “Jaesu,” “Samsu,” and “Bansu”

→ In South Korea, there is a culture in which students do not always enter college immediately after graduating from high school. Instead, they may prepare for the college entrance exam again in order to get into a prestigious university or a specific major they truly want.

→ Jaesu and Samsu refer to spending one or two additional years focused solely on studying in order to retake the college entrance exam. This is usually done as another attempt to enter a better university or gain admission to the major a student wants.

→ Bansu is a uniquely Korean and highly competitive admissions culture in which a student is already attending one university but prepares for the college entrance exam again in order to move to a higher-ranked university or a desired major.

→ From the perspective of international students, this may feel somewhat unfamiliar. In South Korea, however, preparing for the college entrance exam again in order to enter the university you want is considered relatively normal.

→ Simply put, Jaesu, Samsu, and Bansu are all “ways of preparing for college admissions again in order to enter a better university or the major you want.”

② South Korea’s Unavoidable Duty: Military Service and Returning to School

→ Korean men are required to serve in the military for about one year and six months. Most male students go to the military after completing their first or second year of college and then return to school after being discharged, so many male students come back to campus at least two years older than before.

③ A World-Class Passion for Overseas Experience: Language Study Abroad and Exchange Programs

→ South Korea is one of the countries where many people study abroad
or travel overseas relative to its population size. During college, taking a leave of absence to gain global experience through language study abroad, exchange programs, working holidays, or backpacking trips has become almost like an “essential course.”

④ A Strategy for Getting Hired by Major Corporations: The Culture of Delaying Graduation

→ It is also common for upper-year students who are close to graduating to intentionally delay their graduation by a few semesters in order to increase their chances of being hired by major corporations. In South Korea’s job market for large companies, applying as a “prospective graduate,” meaning while still officially enrolled as a student, is often much more advantageous than applying after graduation. This has created a unique survival strategy.

⑤ Voluntary Leaves of Absence to Strengthen “Specs”

→ Since the job market is highly competitive, many students also take one or two years off outside their regular semesters to build the kinds of “specs” that companies look for, such as internships, competition awards, and certifications, while gaining real-world experience.

💊 [Advantage for International Students:
The Unexpected Superpower of Having Older Korean Classmates]

→ For all of these reasons, Korean college students tend to be older than students in many other countries, but this can actually become a major advantage and opportunity for international students.

→ From the perspective of younger international students, working on team projects and studying with Korean seniors and classmates who have gone through various life challenges, such as military service, overseas experience, intense job preparation, and Bansu, can be highly motivating. These students often have strong credentials and substantial real-world experience, allowing you to learn practical lessons about society without even realizing it. Try seeing your older Korean classmates on campus as reliable life mentors and global connections. The quality of your study abroad experience will change completely.

International and Korean students enjoying campus life together, illustrating cultural exchange, friendships, and the diverse university environment experienced by students in Korea.

●🟦✓ A Unique Hierarchy Found in Korean Universities: The Hidden Secrets of “Hakbeon Culture” and “Senior-Junior Culture”

▶ If you are an international student interested in Korea and preparing to study there, you have likely heard about Korea’s distinctive “age and hierarchy culture” at least once.

→ This culture is one of the most distinctive social phenomena in Korean society, shaped by a combination of Confucian values and Korea’s military culture. Of course, in modern times, this vertical culture has gradually become more flexible, but it still remains in many parts of society and on university campuses.

▶ A Standard That Often Matters More Than Age on Campus:
“Hakbeon,” or admission-year cohort

→ In Korean universities, a student’s hakbeon usually refers to the year the student entered university. For example, a student who entered university in 2026 is commonly referred to as part of the “26 hakbeon,” regardless of age. In many universities outside Korea, a student ID number is often simply used for administrative purposes, but in Korea, hakbeon becomes an important standard for distinguishing seniors from juniors.

→ In fact, 20 to 30 years ago, military-style culture was still strongly present on university campuses, and there were dark, harmful practices in which seniors treated juniors harshly or even physically assaulted them. On the other hand, there was also a strong culture in which seniors generously bought meals or drinks for juniors.

→ However, today, this coercive hakbeon culture has almost disappeared. Physical violence and hazing have naturally been unacceptable for a long time, and the burdensome culture in which seniors were expected to always buy food and drinks for juniors has mostly disappeared as well.

▶ What Is the Real Senior-Junior Atmosphere Like in Korean Universities Today?

→ These days, among close seniors and juniors, people often jokingly say things like, “Hey, I’m your senior, why are you acting up?” and laugh it off, or they ask about hakbeon simply to check whether the other person entered the university earlier.

→ In fact, as a reaction against the coercive culture of the past,
the atmosphere has become so relaxed and individualistic that there is now even a lingering side effect of reduced interaction and warmth between seniors
and juniors.

▶ Then, Is This Senior-Junior Culture a Bad Custom That Should Completely Disappear?
It is better to understand it as a culture with both strengths and weaknesses.

→ During Korea’s rapid industrialization, a strong organizational culture and fast decision-making played a certain role. However, today, as both the strengths and weaknesses of this culture are being recognized, universities and society as a whole are gradually moving in a more horizontal direction.

💊 [Humanities Deep Dive: Age, Senior-Junior Culture, and Korea’s Economic Growth]

→ When foreigners look at Korea’s senior-junior culture or vertical organizational culture, they may easily think of only the negative aspects first. However, during the period when Korea grew from a poor country into a manufacturing powerhouse, this culture also functioned in some ways as a source of fast execution and strong organizational power.

→ In industries such as shipbuilding, automobiles, semiconductors, construction, and electronics, where large numbers of workers and major facilities had to move together at the same time, “the ability to execute quickly once a decision was made” was extremely important. Even with limited capital and technology, Korean companies produced results in a short period of time through strong leadership, the on-site experience of seniors, and the fast execution skills of juniors.

→ Of course, today, as creativity, discussion, and diversity have become more important, Korean university and corporate culture is also gradually shifting in a more horizontal direction. Therefore, senior-junior culture is best understood not as something that is simply good or bad, but as a unique culture created within Korea’s growth process.

→ The stories of Hyundai Heavy Industries, Samsung Semiconductor, and LG Household & Health Care, which will be introduced next, are interesting examples that show how this “strong drive and organized execution power” appeared in the growth process of Korean companies.

🚢 True Stories That Surprise International Readers

Many countries have their own postwar growth stories, but South Korea has many examples of compressed growth, where seemingly reckless challenges were pushed forward in a much shorter period of time.

📟 ① The Beach Legend Behind Hyundai Heavy Industries

→ The beginning of Hyundai Heavy Industries, now one of the world’s leading shipbuilders, was so dramatic that it is almost hard to imagine by today’s standards.

→ In the 1970s, President Park Chung-hee, who was advancing a strong state-led industrial policy, presented Hyundai Group founder Chung Ju-yung with a major challenge: “South Korea now needs a massive shipyard of its own.” Although Chung Ju-yung had no experience in shipbuilding and had mainly run a construction business until then, he accepted the challenge with a bold line of reasoning: “If you think about it, the way a ship is built—section by section and assembled—resembles how buildings are constructed.”

→ At the time, Hyundai did not have enough technology or capital. Chung Ju-yung went to meet a prominent Greek shipowner with little more than a photo of the sandy beach at Mipo Bay in Ulsan and a Korean 500-won banknote featuring the Turtle Ship.

→ Pointing to the Turtle Ship printed on the banknote, he made a proposal that would sound incredibly bold even by today’s standards: “We are a people with a history of building Turtle Ships and using them in naval battles in the 16th century. We will build a shipyard here, so please place an order for our ships first.”

→ Surprisingly, the Greek shipowner was deeply impressed by this seemingly reckless determination. He also knew that if Hyundai failed to build the ships properly, he could collect a penalty for breach of contract, so he decided to sign the contract.

→ And this is where the real legend begins.

→ Normally, a company first builds a shipyard, installs the necessary equipment, hires workers, secures an order, and only then begins building ships. But Hyundai moved almost in the opposite direction.

→ Using that contract as its foundation, Hyundai secured financing in London. Then, while hiring workers, it began building the shipyard and constructing the first ships at the same time.

→ In other words, Hyundai was practically building the company, the shipyard, and the ships all at once. It was an extraordinary challenge even by the standards of that era, and it later became one of the symbolic legends of South Korea’s economic growth.

💊 Ultimately, South Korea’s top-tier shipbuilding industry began with a photograph of a sandy beach and a single banknote.

▶ Chung Ju-yung, the founder of Hyundai Group, including Hyundai Motor Company, was born into a poor farming family and had only completed elementary school. As a young man, desperate to escape extreme poverty, he secretly took the money from the sale of his father’s cow and left his hometown (now in North Korea) to move south. At the time, this was before the division of Korea, so travel was possible, but when the Korean War armistice in 1953 created the Demilitarized Zone, he became a displaced person, unable to return to his hometown even though it was right in front of him.

▶ Later, in the south, he founded Hyundai, a global company, and grew it into one of South Korea’s leading conglomerates. Decades after the division, in 1998, he finally received official approval from North Korean authorities and, to repay the debt of gratitude he felt toward his father, drove a herd of 1,001 cows across the Demilitarized Zone on a symbolic visit to his hometown.

▶ The boy who once fled with the price of a single cow to escape poverty became a giant of history, breaking through the walls of division and repaying his debt a thousandfold—an episode that remains one of the most dramatic and poetic stories in the history of global business.

📟 ② The Legendary Rise of Samsung Semiconductor from Nothing

→ Today, Samsung Semiconductor, a leader in the global smartphone and AI markets, actually faced a great deal of ridicule and skepticism when it first began.

→ In 1983, when Samsung’s founder, Lee Byung-chul, announced the company’s entry into the semiconductor business, leading global semiconductor companies in the United States and Japan saw it as a highly reckless challenge. At the time, some even mocked the move, saying, “Samsung trying to make semiconductors is like a kindergartener attempting a marathon.”

→ The ridicule wasn’t limited to outsiders. Many of Samsung’s own employees, as well as people from other major Korean companies and politicians, opposed the plan, saying,
“This business could bankrupt the entire Samsung Group.”

→ Both in the 1980s and today, semiconductors have been an ultra-capital-intensive and ultra-technology-intensive industry, demanding the largest investments and the most advanced technical expertise among all manufacturing sectors. Unlike shipbuilding, where production starts after receiving orders and advance payments, semiconductor development required astronomical upfront investment to secure invisible nanoscale precision technology, with no guarantee of success. If it failed, not a single penny could be recovered, and the entire group could face irreversible collapse—a harsh field where no one could easily start, and failure meant total ruin. At that time, Samsung lacked both the capital and the technology, making this a near-suicidal endeavor for the group.

→ Yet once the decision was made, engineers and executives threw themselves into the project with everything they had. Watching the research building remain lit day and night, those around them reportedly called them “Crazy Samsung.” This story remains a legendary example of how desperately and relentlessly they pushed into an unknown industry.

→ Despite lacking capital, technology, and manpower, Samsung completed developments that had taken advanced countries years to achieve in a very short period, astonishing everyone. The group was shaken by massive initial losses, but they never stopped investing, ultimately turning the semiconductor business into a core growth engine for Samsung.

→ Honestly, few people in the 1980s could have perfectly predicted that semiconductors would become the core industry powering today’s smartphones, data centers, and AI. While everyone shouted that it was impossible, founder Lee Byung-chul and his son, Lee Kun-hee (the second chairman), pushed forward to the very end. Lee Kun-hee is said to have remarked at the time: “Everyone except my wife thought it was impossible, but we had to push forward no matter what.” Ultimately, it was the bold resolve and sheer determination of these two individuals that gave birth to Samsung’s semiconductor business as we know it today.

💊 In the end, the bold conviction and determination of these two individuals created a top-tier semiconductor company that now drives the global IT industry.

📌 Furthermore, Samsung’s founder, Lee Byung-chul, a member of Korea’s elite upper class during the country’s high-growth era, and Hyundai’s founder, Chung Ju-yung, who literally rose from nothing, were among the most famous “rivals for the greater good” in Korean business history. At the time, a saying circulated in Korean business circles: “When Samsung does it, Hyundai will follow; when Hyundai does it, Samsung will follow.” Their fierce yet constructive competition, vying for the top positions in South Korea’s corporate hierarchy, motivated each other and ultimately became the strongest foundation and catalyst for Korea’s economic growth.

💄③ LG: “A Company That Made Toothpaste
Became a Leading K-Beauty Brand?”

→ LG Household & Health Care, one of the leading names in K-beauty that many international visitors now buy when they come to Myeongdong, including brands such as The History of Whoo and SU:M, did not actually begin as a cosmetics company. In the 1950s, shortly after the Korean War, the company made plastic combs and toothpaste, including Perio.

→ One day, the founder looked at a plastic cream container and thought, “What is the point of making this container so well? Wouldn’t we make more money if we filled it with cosmetics and sold it?” In this way, a company that made plastic containers, not a cosmetics specialist, began a bold and seemingly reckless challenge to make the contents that would go inside those containers as well. The technical team that had been making toothpaste and household goods suddenly had to take charge of cosmetics development, and although it was a time when even chemistry majors were in short supply, they worked day and night and eventually created important products in the early domestic cosmetics industry. That challenge later grew into the massive wave of K-beauty that gained worldwide attention.

💊 In the end, the origins of K-beauty can be traced back to a company that was great at making plastic containers and simply asked itself, “What else could we put inside these containers that would sell even better?”

📌📌 Final Advice for International Students

→ Every country has its own dramatic corporate growth stories that may be hard to imagine by today’s standards. South Korean university and corporate culture is also quickly moving away from the authoritarianism of the past and gradually becoming more rational and horizontal, like in the United States or Europe. The historical episodes introduced here are best read lightly and enjoyably as “interesting behind-the-scenes stories” showing the unique cohesion and execution power of Koreans.

→ In fact, when living abroad, every country has unusual cultures that can feel confusing or difficult to understand because they are so different from the culture of one’s own country. It is nearly impossible for us, as foreigners, to instantly change the unique history and social systems that each country has built over many decades. Fortunately, as today’s world becomes increasingly globalized, the cultures of different countries are mixing with one another and gradually changing in positive ways.

→ In the end, the most important thing is mindset. If you think flexibly and say to yourself, “Since I am now in Korea, I should first respect and understand this country’s culture and history as they are,” then Korea’s unique cultures that may feel a little unfamiliar and strange at first will become much easier and more enjoyable to adapt to. Opening your mind to a new culture and taking on the challenge is the true first step toward a successful study abroad experience.

◆ Thinking About Studying in Korea?

▶ Korean university admission can vary depending on your nationality, academic background, Korean language level, budget, and visa situation.

→ That is why choosing a famous university is not always enough. It is more important to find the right admission route, scholarship opportunity, and visa plan that fits your personal situation.

→ This is Part 4 of the Korean Universities Guide, which will continue through Part 8.

◆ You May Also Like

👉 Korean Universities Guide Part 1:
What international students should know before choosing a university

👉 Korea Public Transportation Guide:
Subway, bus, transportation cards, and travel tips

👉 Life in Korea Guide:
Useful information for foreign students preparing to live in Korea

◆ Contact BridgePlan Korea

→ If you need help with university selection, admission documents, visa preparation, or study planning in Korea, feel free to contact us.

📧 Email: [visa@bridgeplankorea.com]

🌐 Website: https://bridgeplankorea.com/

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