Wednesday 24 July 2013

How to get a Scholarship for South Korea


How to get Scholarships in South Korea
Very important, must read in full


South Korea is an emerging country among the most advanced countries on the world map. It attracts the attention of the world’s scholars towards itself in many fields of life among all, economy, technology, tourism and education is given the most priority. It is one of the reasons South Korea is famous among the scholars of the world. South Korea is one of the major countries offering a lot of scholarships in every field of study for almost all the students around the globe. If you are really interested in getting scholarship in Korea, please read below, with much attention, you will understand everything. In Shah Allah


Dear All,

There are three kinds of opportunities for you guys to get scholarship in Korea.
1. HEC Scholarship
This scholarship is provided by HEC, Pakistan with title of 90% Overseas Scholarships, 10% Overseas Scholarships and many more like this. The HEC paid scholarships are the best option for any kind of scholarships in Korea as you will neither be dependent on professor or university for the funding nor you may need to worry about the tuition/dormitory  fee submission. HEC will do it for you in regular bases and will also submit 6 months stipend in your account. Also you may not to worry about the completion of your degree well in time as professor is not directly funding you. In this case HEC has a clear procedure on how to aplly for these scholarships. You can visit HEC website 



2. Professor scholarship
This scholarship solely depends on professor and university does not give you money in this case. Why because, professors have some projects and to finish them well in time they need to recruit scholars to work for him. These are easy to get but hard to maintain, because sometimes if professor is not happy with your performance, then he can give you financial problems. In Korea, if scholars are facing problems 90% of them are those who are availing professor’s scholarship.

If you are fully determined to apply for a professor scholarship there are certain important things you need to do. In first, you have to search relevant professors of your choice and research interest. Then you should make a tailored made CV according to the interest of those relevant professors and send him/her that CV along with a short email stating your introduction and show your interest that you want to do master/Ph.D under his/her supervision. If a professor shows interest it means almost you have 99% chances that your admission is confirmed. In most of the cases, university provides tuition fee scholarship while professor provide monthly living expenses scholarship. It also means you have to struggle to get these two scholarships. If you get one then the other you have to pay by yourself and it is very expensive for individual.

3. University scholarships
University scholarships are few and hard to get, but good than professor scholarship as in this case you will not be depended on money by professor. But when you apply for this scholarship, if you contact the professor before in the way as mentioned above, then you have better chance to get this scholarship. Although university scholarships mostly do not require professor’s recommendations but if you are successful to get one before applying, then it is good chance for you to get that scholarship. In this case university will pay for your tuition fee and will offer you some minimum amount as living expenses.

How to find a Supervisor:

The most important thing is to find a professor of your choice. In this regards what you have to do is:

1. Read all your major professors profiles, research interests and projects. (You can also find the research interests of professors by finding on Google their published research papers).
2. Make your CV research oriented and also easily readable and good looking. (Also according to the professor you choose to apply. Relate your previous work plus final year project with that professor’s work and show him your interest in his work).
Important Note for Electronics plus Computer majors ( In Korea, professors like if you are good in programming languages and it is good if you have distinction in programming skills and you can show them).
3. Write an email. (Be specific in writing email, as professor has not much time to read it fully just write main but few sentences).
4. Send your email and CV to as many professors as you can (keep in mind only interested professors may reply you, so don’t be disappointed).
Note: If you are interested in any specific professor and he/she does not reply then you should finally try to catch him/her by" telephone". Please keep in mind that some professors do not reply, so in that case, you should contact him/her by telephone.


IMPORTANT:


1. Maybe if you face some trouble while opening website then please install “Korean” language tools.
2. Deadlines and time is very important.
3. Try to get any English proficiency certificate. Sometime it increases chances of scholarships.
4. Once the process start (getting in contact with professor) Come up with a project plan or SOP (Statement of purpose, Research plan) that what you are going to research about. Indulge yourself in writing new project proposals if required.
(Here I must mention the most important thing is your proposal because it is your introduction and research interest in front of your professor. So be specific in your research proposal keeping in mind the interest of the professor).


FOR MORE DETAILS on How to contact Professor Courtesy from:
http://scholarguide.blogspot.it/search/label/Blog

First Strong Impression:

In a successful search for a professor, who is willing to supervise your research, you have to make strong first impression because you may get only one chance for each professor. If you fail to impress or convince him about your abilities in first contact, it’s probable that you can never do that again. Most common and formal way to contact a supervisor is through email. There are some common mistakes which if avoided would result in a splendid communication regarding your motivation.
Know him well

Know your professor’s profile well, try to see his latest publications especially one which interests you and try to quote them in your email just title of paper. Write a formal, short but comprehensive email including information about your research interests, how you found him and your background.

Avoid Casual language

Your email should be very formal without use of any casual language and check twice for your abbreviation which you frequently use with your friends etc. For example writing short for your as ‘ur’, thanks as ‘thnx’, ‘R U fine?’ and others.

Subject of Email

The subject of email is very important as professors are very busy and would not spend time reading all emails in their inbox; subject line is to catch their attention. Write like ‘Interested in Research area _____ with your group’ or similar.

Make specific Query

The professors get hundreds of emails from students asking for funding to support their studies. The most important thing professors want to establish about you is level of ‘seriousness’ and ‘motivation’. Some students write an email with generic content and send to many professors and universities and this is worse way to make contact with a professor. Try to be specific to your own case and refer to things which motivate you to join that particular group. Generic emails would never be read and replied.

Do not ask about weather/health

As a stranger to professor, its better not to ask how is he feeling and how the weather is. For initial contact this kind of questions/wishes are not appreciated. To the point message is better as it saves time of recipient.

Know the Culture

In some cultures you do not call elders by name or first name. For example in Korean culture, writing “Dear Professor” is better than “Dear _Name” as the social hierarchy is vertical. While in west there is no harm in calling Professor’s name as social hierarchy is horizontal. It looks a minor point but I am telling you it reflects a lot if you do it rightly. Do not flatter the recipient beg or plea as it is not considered a good thing.

Be precise

As mentioned earlier, message should be precise and to the point. If you are referring to some of professor’s papers, just mention the title of paper/project. You do not need to go in details of your own work at this stage, just try to connect that with the research interests of professor.

How you find him

Do tell him how you found him. Professors are always keen to know this, as it also indicates how serious were you to join his group and did not try thousand email addresses in a go to try your luck.
Attachments:

Never forget to attach a CV and ideas about your expected area of research. Do not attach all those award certificates and transcripts at this point in time.

Review Email

Check all the grammar, spelling, typos and similar careless mistakes. These would not put good impression about finishing of your work. Conclude your email well, ask him to talk more about your ambitions and do let you know if need more information

How make a good Research Proposal:
Research Proposal:
I all the cases you may need a research proposal which must show the area of your interest and skills that you can use in fulfilling the project. In this regards it is suggested that research proposal should be designed according to the area of interest of professor. You should visit the website/personal profile of the professor and should what he/she is working on currently in his lab. This will help you a lot.
To narrow down search, you have to first know what your interest/ambition is. I know it is not easy to know exact topic of research at such an early stage but you should know your area of research. One way is to search some latest survey papers related to your field, just skim through the content, do not expect from yourself to understand everything at this point, look at the author profiles at the end of papers. After doing some literature review, you can see that leading professors in your area of research would be most cited and by this you can point to potential supervisors currently involved in your topic of interest. Another way is to further narrow down your search by universities; where you wish to pursue your degree then visit university’s website and your program’s page. Here you will see couple of professors doing similar research, you must see their latest publications to finalize potential supervisor. Be careful, do not email to more than one professor at the same department simultaneously, because if a professor finds you suitable he will arrange an interview with more than one or two other professors and usually you end up with same professors you emailed, besides one who is interested in you and this raises a question about your commitment or seriousness because you cannot be ambitious about different research interests at the same time.

Good Luck you all for your future. Please find me by email if you have any question regarding the issue of getting scholarship in Korea. I will hopefully reply you at my earliest.
Dr Fakhar Khan
PhD graduate
College of Pharmacy
Hanyang University, South Korea

Email: fakharscholar@yahoo.com

(This article is exclusively written for the wbsite of Pakistani Students in Korea. While writing this article material is taken from many scholarships providing websites).

1 comment:

  1. sir how to write aproposal i m bsc honour student and i have not too much knowledge to write a proposal

    ReplyDelete