Every March, the Haeoleum Festival is held by each college in CBNU for freshmen. It is one of the most exciting events because not only do freshmen prepare for it, but other students who are not freshmen can also participate in it. However, many students have complained about the event for recent years. Furthermore, some of them have insisted that the Haeoleum Festival should be abolished.
  The Haeoleum Festival originally started in the hope of building the strength of each college and building lasting friendships among freshmen. The event is arranged independently in each college. Before starting the event, the student council of each college receives applications from freshmen who want to participate in the event. On the day of the event, the applicants show their versatile talents on the stage by dancing or singing. A lot of clubs in CBNU introduce themselves through the event, and the student council even holds surprising performances and gives gifts to the participants during the event. The winner of the event is chosen through the evaluation by the student council members, and the winner receives a monetary prize.
  However, many students have begun to express their complaints about the event because the problems that contradict the original purposes of the event have not been fixed yet, and those problems have occurred every year. Kim Yeong-jun(’13, School of Business) said, “When I was a freshman in 2013, I participated in the Haeoleum Festival which was hosted by the student council of our college. In the case of College of Business, there are three departments, so the number of teams that could participate in the event was assigned to each department at that time. Therefore, we had a meeting about who would participate in it, but nobody wanted to participate in it. Then, seniors created a forced atmosphere and took away our personal time until participants volunteered. Because of that, there were a few students who had to participate in the event reluctantly. Also, seniors gave us more pressure by saying, If we are in the rankings, we can get some money as a prize. In the end, we didn’t win the event, and after the event, we had to try hard not to upset them for a while. However, as the years passed by, those kinds of bad practices have never been fixed. I don't feel good whenever I see freshmen who are practicing hard till late for the Haeoleum Festival every March.”
  Meanwhile, since 2015, the College of Humanities has abolished the compulsory participation of the Haeoleum Festival. Instead, it has held a Freshmen Song Festival with the students’ voluntary participation. Regarding the abolition of the Haeoleum Festival, Bae Seong-min(’14, Dept of Russian Language and Literature) said, “Every evening, my friends of my grade and I practiced our dance together for the Haeoleum Festival. Thanks to that, we could quickly get closer to each other and adapt to our campus life well. However, I often felt pressure because I spent too much time practicing. Due to the spread of the negative perception and controversy about the Haeoleum Festival, the College of Humanities abolished it to eliminate the bad practices. Now, only the students who want to take part in the festival practice for their performance. With the abolition of the Haeoleum Festival, the juniors could experience a more enjoyable campus life.”
  Regarding these students’ opinions, Yoon Ji-young(’16, Dept. of Architecture), who is the planning manager of the student council in the College of Engineering, said, “It is obvious that the Haeoleum Festival began with a good intention because it was for the students’ enjoyment. Of course, as a student council member, I think that it is a good phenomenon that many students participate in the event. However, it is not fair to force students to participate in and practice their performances despite the fact that they don’t want to do so. That is why our College of Engineering doesn’t compel student participation. If there are any senior students who demand compulsory participation and threaten freshmen, there will be strict penalties for those students.”

By Hong Ye-ha l yh37@cbnu.ac.kr
By Park Joo-hyun l jh38@cbnu.ac.kr