Korean Job Discussion Forums

[YTMND]

I am in China and they have some silly rules about living on campus:

1) They don't allow teachers back on campus after 11pm.
2) They chain lock the buildings the teachers and students live in.
3) They regularly knock on your door instead of calling you ahead of time and expect you to answer the door immediately or else they continue knocking and if impatient they open your room regardless what you are doing. (Yea, I know that is a long sentence. I just wanted to get all that in.)
4) Instead of talking with a manager or head English teacher, you have to ping pong between the international department, your recruiter, or English department just to get simple things done (computer monitor fixed in your room or classroom, schedule issues, copies).

Is this the same in Korea? I hear how dreamy it is to work at a college, but I don't like the idea of being locked out of the campus or treated like a prisoner in my room. Feels worse, they don't even allow conjugal visits. At least you get those in prison.

[robbie_davies]

[YTMND]

[robbie_davies]

[cdninkorea]

There are some universities in Korea like this, but at every one I've heard of, the foreign faculty protested until they changed the rules (I don't mean they actually staged a protest, but for example, at one school in Seoul, they pounded on the windows at night when they wanted to get in, wrote letters, accosted higher-up in the halls, etc.)

[cabeza]

I've heard of Korean universities where the foreign staff had to share the same dormitory building with the students. As well as not being allowed visitors of the opposite sex and having a curfew.
And when i say "heard" I mean read. On this site.
The place I work at has off campus accomodation. However the university staff have been known to enter apartments without notice. On one occasion when one of the teachers was asleep in bed
The concept of private space isn't always understood here.

[teachyou1004]

Never had a problem. Just know whose window you can knock on to let you in after hours.

[12ax7]

My university tried that several years ago when it decided to double the number of foreigners on staff in my department. It had no spare apartments for them, so they were made to stay at the dorm. It didn't last long. They vastly ignored the curfew (10pm, and some had classes that ended at 9:30!). Needless to say, they got into many arguments with the security guard who refused to grant them entry, especially when they went out for a few drinks after work. Administration finally clued in that if they wanted to live like monks, that's what they'd have become instead of becoming teachers. Now, they just offer a housing allowance when they run out of spare apartments.