Classes here at Korea University are simple but difficult. How does this paradox exist? Well, most classes are heavily lecture-based, so I must just listen and participate. There is an easy grade for participation and I don't need to completely devote myself to the lecture. It makes it easy to get away with being distracted. When I am in class as long as I did the reading I have things to say and participate in during the reading.
This being said the midterms were extremely hard. For my History class, we needed to memorize many dates and time periods of rulers and dynasties. I had never had to focus on exact time periods. My history teachers always said as long as you have a basic timeline in your head it is okay. NO NOT IN KOREA!! I had to learn to include the date in my notes and highlight it many times. When were Silla, Gugoreyo, and Baekjae united? HUH, it is 668. ANOTHER difficult thing about this class is memorizing names. Since Baekjae is written in English but the name looks like this in Korean 백제 and can be written in English with a B or P. It makes it confusing when different people change how they say it. Also, Silla is written 신라 and can be spelled in English as Shilla or Silla. When I first encountered the name I was saying it wrong for weeks until I learned the Korean pronunciation rule about S. Over history the romanization (side note romanization is the process of making Korean hangul into English letters and pronunciation, it is difficult because there are sounds that do not have an equivalent English letter) of Korean has changed for example the name 이승만. He was a South Korean politician who was supported by the US after the Korean war and served as the first president of South Korea from 1948 to 1960. Rhee was also the first and last president of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea from 1919 to his impeachment in 1925 and from 1947 to 1948.
His name in history is Romanized as Syngman Rhee. This uses an old form of romanization that is not used now, in new romanization we would say Lee Seungman. Do you see where many complications with memorizing names and places can come from? and the way that history can slowly morph into a new name and person because of the way English and Korean do not line up at all. His name is not pronounced this way even if it is closer to the real Korean pronunciation but English does not accept names as just vowels, you would say it much more like " EE Seung mahn" its complicated to write it down as I am not a linguist but in real life, I could show you the difference haha.
The complications that arise from language make my history class harder than expected but It is very fun to see the ways that history was affected over the years and how religion, Confucianism, economy, and more affected east Asia.