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Bae Yoon Sang is a Korean student who studied at HELP University College
before hewent on to pursue the Bachelor of Commerce programme at the University of Melbourne,Australia.

He says he is not a smart person but he just worked very hard.
He claims that studying in Malaysia before going to Australia was the best decision he has ever made in his life.

Dorothy Chen from HELPs Customer Marketing Department talks to Yoon to find out more about his life at HELP and life in Melbourne.

Bae Yoon Sang, or Yoon as he likes to be called, is studying at the prestigiousUniversity of Melbourne in Australia.
To many people, he is already half way to achieving success, but Yoon considers himself as just a regular guy who studied really hard. After graduating from Young Dong high school, he obtained a Bachelors degree in Aviation Management from the Korean Aviation University. Then he came to study at HELP University College in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and subsequently
transferred to Melbourne after one very successful year at HELP, where he scored six high distinctions and one distinction.

Yoon emphasized many times through our email that Koreans would enjoy a greatadvantage by opting to study in Malaysia because they would
be able to improve significantly their competency in the English language.

After coming to Melbourne, I realize that the decision to go to Malaysia first was the best I ever made in my life.

Its a great advantage if people studied at HELP first. After coming to Melbourne, I have met so many Koreans, most of whom have been living here for 3 to 4 years, and yetthey are not able to speak English well.

I guess every Korean thinks if they ever go to an English speaking country, they could easily improve their English there. This may be true, but in Australia, in cities such as Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, there are alreadylarge concentrations ofKorean communities. Whenever they meet up with
Koreans, they wouldspeak Korean. As such, it is a waste of money if Koreans think they can come to Melbourne to study English. Actually, I scored 7.0 in IELTS, but I dont think I could have scored7.0 if I had started studying English in Australia.

What I am trying to emphasize is that many Koreans might get more than 600 marks in TOEFL, but still they are not ableto communicate in proper English and they are afraid ofspeaking to the local people here. Also they tend to focus on the examinations, but in fact there is no test of speaking skills in TOEFL. Thats the problem.

For Koreans, grammar is not so much of a problem. The most serious problem is the lack of conversational skills. I improved a lot in my
English, especially conversation skills , when I wasin Malaysia.
Even if a Malaysians pronunciation is not as good as an Australians, at least I learnt how to structure English sentences correctly. In fact, the sentence pattern between Korean and English is completely
different. I suggest Korean guys who want to improve their spoken English should socialize more with English speaking Malaysians.

While I was at HELP, I used to live in accommodation arranged by HELP
and I could go out with students from different countries so that I could practice speaking English.

I asked him, besides learning to speak English, what he thought of his studies at HELP.

In fact, I studied more than 8 hours a day trying to catch up on lectures and tutorials because at that time, my English was poor,but later I improved my English a lot during my first year at HELP.
I guess lecturers in HELP focus more on practical skills.

Once, when I sat for the Management Accounting test, the lecturer came to me and said in jest, "Yoon, you gave me a lot of work to do,"
because I wrote so many pages in the final examination. I guess that was the happiest moment I had in terms of studies.

When I studied in the Korean Aviation University, there werent any tutorials. I guess tutorials are good for us to improve our communication skills.

I think the best way to get good marks is by working hard. Actually, in my case, after my military service in Korea, I really wanted to go
to Australia to study accounting. So I worked really hard as I am not smart at all.Perhaps those students who are smarter than me could
spend less time studying than I did.

I applied to two Australian universities: UNSW (University of New South Wales) for Actuarial Studies, and the University of Melbourne for Accounting. I got offers from both universities.

If I am not mistaken, I got a 20% scholarship from UNSW but I got the offer after registering at the University of Melbourne. Furthermore, since I am considering to further my education like doing my Masters and PhD, everyone told me to aim for postgraduate studies in Melbourne because it is regarded as the best university in Australia, instead of going to America or England.

And its true that at Melbourne it is very hard to get good marks.
The examinations are very tough and are all about theory. Everyone at the University of Melbourne is so smart and I am not smart at all. So I have to spend more time than they do in order to get good marks. No time to enjoy life!

I have some friends from Monash, Macquarie and UNSW. Everybody says that the University of Melbourne is much harder. So if Koreans want to
come here, please be prepared to work very hard.

I guess if I studied in America, it might be better. I came here because I couldnt afford the high tuition fees and living costs in America. But I guess it depends on which university you go to because
famous universities provide better education. Compared to an average university in America, it may be better to come to Melbourne.

The final thing I want to say is that I guess those people who want to study in Australia or the USA might have some illusions but what I can say is that its better to study English in Malaysia.
If you come directly to Australia, its just a waste of time and money.

And I just want to add, "Good luck to all Koreans!"
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