Lee(’10, Dept. of Safety Engineering) is a student at Chungbuk National University(CBNU). She applied for a humanities-related subject because she did not think that she had to apply within a field of majors. However, she got a call from her department office after a few days. The content was, “You must mandatorily complete subjects related to the engineering authentication program. Therefore, you need to cancel the humanities-related subject because of the engineering authentication program.” Other students still cannot choose subjects that they want because they should complete the engineering authentication program.

Students want to select a class
  The engineering authentication program is currently being implemented in 14 departments of the university, including the College of Engineering, the College of Electrical & Computer Engineering, and the College of Agriculture, Life & Environments Sciences. In order to receive a certification of completion from the engineering authentication program, students must complete 108 credits from determined subjects, such as specialized liberal arts, MSC(Math, Science, Computer), and major subjects, out of a total 140 credits for graduation. Accordingly, the motivation of the engineering authentication program is to raise professional engineering to show its practical ability in industrial fields. On the other hand, according to last year’s survey in the Korean CBNU Newspaper about the engineering authentication program, 90% of students was attending the engineering authentication program. Among them, 60% of students replied, ‘The engineering authentication program is not necessary.’ 29% of students pointed out that, ‘The engineering authentication program has a problem with violating class options.’ Kim Myo-seop(’10, Dept. of Safety Engineering) actually had trouble in preparing for the engineering authentication program. He said, “I wanted to attend a soccer class, but I couldn’t attend that class because I had to listen to a course for the engineering authentication program.” Like this student, students who are completing the engineering authentication program are graduating from a university by taking classes that they don’t want.

A fight over the engineering authentication program
  The subject selection system of ABEEK is a violation of student’s class options. About this, Shin Yeong-ae(30, a researcher of the ABBEK center of CBNU) said, “The course is designed to accept the opinions of the industry. Then, the curriculum is designed and implemented in our university. Since the implementation in 2005, our university has undergone a lot of trials and errors.”ABEEK designed the curriculum to reflect the views of the industry and experts. However, the design of the curriculum does not reflect the views of the students participating in the classes. This system prevents those students from learning a variety of classes because universities want to nurture talented engineers for the industry. The university is not exploring studying but focusing on employment. Therefore, it is hard to avoid this critical situation. Meanwhile, she said, “Our university received ABEEK certification the first time. Other universities have been preparing to be tested by the engineering authentication program. The engineering authentication program was introduced in accordance with this trend.” When our university started the engineering authentication program, our university did not take into account the opinion of the members of university. Simply, the engineering authentication program was started to follow the trend in Korea. These problems were already an issue. In Korea University and Seoul National University, they had prepared for the engineering authentication program certification, but they retracted it. They said, “The atmosphere of society was to recommend plural majors and minors to satisfy the diverse studies.” Anonymous PD(Program Director) professor of ABEEK(College of Engineering) said, “The Department of Software in Sungkyunkwan University is giving lectures that Samsung demands, and students get a job at Samsung after graduation.” Similarly, to train engineers with practical ability, ABEEK has implemented the engineering authentication program to adapt to the industry. However, it violates the class options of students.
  The engineering authentication program has been enforced for 6 years. Not only our university but other universities have brought up problems several times. Consequently, the engineering authentication program has to be improved so that students can select the engineering authentication program themselves because it will give more chances about class options to students.

By Lee Won-jin | wj35@cbnu.ac.kr