Korean Studies at Sheffield

So - a bit about me and my application process:

1. Since I was about 9, I'd always planned on being a vet.

2. I deferred my uni entry (didn't apply in year 12), as my school was being unhelpful about predicted grades and allowing me to switch one of my subjects around - in the end I studied A2 Biology, Chemistry and Philosophy, with AS Physics. Originally Physics was my third A2, but eventually I was allowed to continue with Philosophy instead as my physics teacher was SO rubbish! Ended up getting an A thanks to my incredible tutor tho

3. I didn't get the grades to apply for vet medicine, but actually wasn't that disappointed. I think it served as confirmation that for some time it really wasn't what I'd wanted to do, but admitting that meant I had to find a plan B.

4. I did then apply to a vet med course in Croatia for international students (it's taught in English), and was accepted. However, the UK government doesn't provide student loans for international unis, so the finances were going to be a big problem.

5. I then applied to forensic science (don't even ask how I chose that!) because my parents were pressuring me to apply to something in the UK. I received 5 offers, but knew I wasn't going to accept any of them, as I didn't have any interest in the course.

6. Having already Googled 'Korean degree UK' before applying to forensic science and not found anything, my mom mentioned she'd found Korean Studies/Korean degrees at both Sheffield and SOAS - since both unis are very well-respected, I found this reassuring in terms of the degree's legitimacy. My parents were very on board too: my mom just wants me out of the house (we don't get on very well), and my dad actually works at Hyundai, which is a Korean company, and could see how useful the degree could be for Korean companies etc.

7. I turned down all my forensic science offers to apply to Sheffield through Extra - let me know if you have any questions about this, I'll be happy to try to help! - even though when I'd emailed them they'd been quite discouraging about my chances of being accepted. What did I have to lose lol

8. I received an offer from them about 1.5-2 weeks later, which I accepted immediately. TBH I've never actually been to Sheffield, but given the mess the whole process has been that's unsurprising. I hadn't been to Croatia either! I'm now in the process of applying for accommodation and student finance.


Let me know if you have any questions about any of this - I'll try to post as things pop-up in the process to give anyone else who's looking at Sheffield/Korean Studies an idea of what to expect. I hope this will be helpful for someone! x

Having taken a gap year, I've finally accepted my offer from Sheffield for Korean Studies, starting Sep 2019. I know @umbrellala created a similar thread, but as she's studying at SOAS I thought it may be helpful to have some information about Sheffield.

Hey, we have a chat for SEAS applicants at Sheffield if you'd be interested in joining?

Hey, we have a chat for SEAS applicants at Sheffield if you'd be interested in joining?

I'm so glad you're sharing your experiences too! It'll be interesting to see what the differences are. Congrats on your offer and good luck

That would be awesome, thank you! I put a not on the freshers FB group, but there've been so many posts I reckon it's gotten lost... Could you PM me for FB details? x

I found your thread so unbelievably helpful and reassuring - thank you so much for all the work you put into it! I just thought it may be helpful to have some notes for people looking at other unis too xx

I actually don’t have access to a desktop anymore so can’t message you so if you send me a PM I’ll be able to link you to the chat

Hi love - sent a PM recently with my FB details, has it come through? x

I'm literally in FB chat with you but I'm commenting on here, lol. If you want to see who is in your flat with you, you sign into MUSE, then go to the accommodation portal home page, then "degree application" then "continue" (this part will make you panic and think you might reset something but now you've paid the deposit I think you'd have to ring up to reset the system tbh) This takes you to a page you must have seen when you finished paying the deposit? It says "Congrats" and has a booking summary on it, but it you scroll down further it should tell you who is in which room if they had their info public. I agree about it not being a great site though, I am set to private on mine (because the office themselves assigned me it) so it would be handy if there was an option to add a profile now, especially as the only people who can see the info at this point are your flatmates, not just people browsing, so you don't feel so weird about writing your info publicly.

Yay, news!! To be honest not that much has happened with regards to uni stuff, since most people will have only finished their exams recently and are still waiting on results. I'm just lucky to be all sorted and raring to go!!

I've now confirmed my accommodation, so thought I'd post about the process, which was pretty easy and I think the system worked very well.

At Sheffield, you can apply to accommodation once you hold a conditional offer, which you then confirm with a deposit later on. The system was amazing - you log onto this thing called MUSE with the details they send you, and then select the contract length and type of room you want to apply for - eg. ensuite, double etc - and then you can create a mini profile and can see which rooms are still available. It gets very granular: you can select which room number, which flat, everything! It also shows the profiles of other people who've already reserved rooms in each flat. Basically, you write a short note about what kind of person you are, like if you're tidy/messy, any interests and everything. This then shows up for the other people looking at flats, and you can choose based on that. For example, I saw a few profiles of people who said they were very messy, and I'm not down with that personally... I've actually ended up in an LGBT+ flat (although they've never asked me anything about that), and though I'm not really sure what that means I'm still excited!

There was one other person in my flat when I reserved it, and I don't think it's possible to get back in to see who else has joined without starting the whole process again. This is probably the only complaint I have - it's organised through a separate company from what I can see, and the website isn't particularly user-friendly. It all seems to have gone fairly smoothly though, so I'm sure you'll be able to figure it out if you need!

I then received an email a couple of days ago, having reserved the room a couple of months back, saying I had a week to pay the £150 deposit to confirm my room. Since then, I've set up my account to pay the rent in instalments, though of course these don't begin until you're actually there. You can also choose to pay all at once but your girl is broke so we ain't doing that.

One thing I should note is that it seems quite a few people are going with private accommodation - at least from my course chat. We do have quite a lot of post-grads, so this may be why they're less concerned about the whole uni experience in terms of accommodation since they've been there before, but I really wanted to be in halls for my first year. It does seem that going privately actually works out cheaper, and a lot of people have recommended some great websites specifically for students looking for accommodation in the area - let me know if it would be useful for me to share these!

If anyone has any questions, feel free to drop them here or send me a PM. I'll probably be back in a few weeks when I hope I'll have some more news to share!! Hope all your exams went well, and you're enjoying your summer. x

Ooh exciting!! It all seems to get very real when accommodation is in line and ready to go, your flat seems nice too! You definitely won't regret sticking with the uni halls instead of going private, it really is worth the experience. None of the postgrads I know live in uni halls, but as you said they've already had the experience and they're probably sick of halls and living with other messy/noisy undergrads

I'm honestly so excited - I just want to get started!! Since I've just been working over my gap year, I really haven't spent much time with people our age, so I'm super excited to meet everyone How is prep for your YA going?? So looking forward to hearing about it!! x

You should be!! Sorry I've only just gotten round to replying to this, it got lost in my notifications somewhere, but my YA prep is pretty much done now! Even my dorms are sorted so I just need to get there now I'm leaving on Monday!!

So - a bit about me and my application process:

1. Since I was about 9, I'd always planned on being a vet.

2. I deferred my uni entry (didn't apply in year 12), as my school was being unhelpful about predicted grades and allowing me to switch one of my subjects around - in the end I studied A2 Biology, Chemistry and Philosophy, with AS Physics. Originally Physics was my third A2, but eventually I was allowed to continue with Philosophy instead as my physics teacher was SO rubbish! Ended up getting an A thanks to my incredible tutor tho

3. I didn't get the grades to apply for vet medicine, but actually wasn't that disappointed. I think it served as confirmation that for some time it really wasn't what I'd wanted to do, but admitting that meant I had to find a plan B.

4. I did then apply to a vet med course in Croatia for international students (it's taught in English), and was accepted. However, the UK government doesn't provide student loans for international unis, so the finances were going to be a big problem.

5. I then applied to forensic science (don't even ask how I chose that!) because my parents were pressuring me to apply to something in the UK. I received 5 offers, but knew I wasn't going to accept any of them, as I didn't have any interest in the course.

6. Having already Googled 'Korean degree UK' before applying to forensic science and not found anything, my mom mentioned she'd found Korean Studies/Korean degrees at both Sheffield and SOAS - since both unis are very well-respected, I found this reassuring in terms of the degree's legitimacy. My parents were very on board too: my mom just wants me out of the house (we don't get on very well), and my dad actually works at Hyundai, which is a Korean company, and could see how useful the degree could be for Korean companies etc.

7. I turned down all my forensic science offers to apply to Sheffield through Extra - let me know if you have any questions about this, I'll be happy to try to help! - even though when I'd emailed them they'd been quite discouraging about my chances of being accepted. What did I have to lose lol

8. I received an offer from them about 1.5-2 weeks later, which I accepted immediately. TBH I've never actually been to Sheffield, but given the mess the whole process has been that's unsurprising. I hadn't been to Croatia either! I'm now in the process of applying for accommodation and student finance.


Let me know if you have any questions about any of this - I'll try to post as things pop-up in the process to give anyone else who's looking at Sheffield/Korean Studies an idea of what to expect. I hope this will be helpful for someone! x

Im planning to apply for sheffield to do korean in my gap year as well! First of all thank you for this thread and i also had a couple of questions:
1) you mentioned Extra, what is that?
2) what type of things did you include in your personal statment?

Again thank you for this thread!