BEING A college student these days is definitely not for the faint of heart and mind. Nowadays, students must struggle with not only studies but also with the issues of housing, finance, career choices and more. With such numerous worries and burdens that tag along with the status of a college student, academics run the risk of losing top priority compared to the past. However, Solution, the 51st Students’ Union of Yonsei University is seeking to become the real “solution” for some of Yonseians’ numerous worries. Among the many solutions, this month’s Campus Insider column would like to inform Yonseians of three benefits: One Click One View, House Calendar and S-membership.

Solution for scholarships: One Click One View

           Scholarships tend to ease both the students’ and parents’ worries about tuition fees. Yet exactly how much scholarship aid is available for Yonseians and how much do we actually receive? According to the Students’ Union election policy booklet, approximately ￦72.4 billion was available in scholarships for Yonseians last year with approximately 33% of the funds from outside Yonsei, the most representative example being national scholarships. Yet, because students are not aware of all the different scholarships and the qualifications for applying, Yonseians have not been able to make full use of the provided scholarships.

The school has made an attempt to solve the lack of scholarship information for students, by creating a website, www.yonsei.ac.kr/scholar. This website, however still remains largely unknown to the majority of the students, because of the lack of advertising and the bothersome process of joining the site with a new ID and password. The biggest problem, though, seems to be the inability to see the wanted information in one glance. Instead, the site has a page with a very long list of links to various scholarship foundations and students have to click one by one to see what each scholarships is about. Hence, the task of finding and looking into countless sites for each of the scholarships outside of Yonsei, is another irritating process.

Therefore, the solution the Students’ Union provides is One Click One View. Through this system, students will be able to save time and efforts in search of scholarships because they can receive the essential information for scholarships in one glance. After the students enter in the required personal information, such as their major, GPA and government based financial state, they will be pointed to all the scholarships and for which they are qualified to apply. The Students’ Union promises that students will be able to find this online system on the Students’ Union’s website and on Yonsei’s portal site as a tab, around the middle of the this semester. With the solution, One Click One View, the search for scholarships will definitely be eased – surely in one click and one view.

Solution for House Programs: House Calendar

The second solution offered for Yonseians is House Calendar. This solution is specially designed for students during their Residential College Program at the Yonsei International Campus (YIC) in Songdo. House programs are events that are hosted by a specific house, aimed to enhance interaction among students in the same house. In the past, students were not able to participate in various house programs because they were not notified in advance of the events. In order to prevent this problem and reduce confusion among the students, Solution has created the House Calendar.

House Calendar is a program that will be the ultimate solution for schedule conflicts concerning the house programs. Through this benefit, students will be able not only to see all of the house programs to be held, but also to do the following three actions. First of all, students will be able to indicate their attendance for certain house programs. This is mainly for the staff members preparing for the house program, since they will know how many people to expect for each event. The second is that students will be able to respond to the house programs with feedbacks. Nothing can be more honest than the feedback of those who experienced the events first-hand. Students who are indecisive about attending a program will be able to make decisions after reading through the feedback of the former students who participated in the same events. That way, they will know what to expect and prepare for the event. Last but not least, students will be able to attend programs held by other houses. In the past, students were notified only about programs taking place at their own houses. Through the House Calendar, students will now be able to see a list of all the house programs at YIC and also take part in all of them. Noh Kyung-ho (Chief executor of executive office, Solution) added that the House Calendar is planned to be included in the smartphone application the Students’ Union is currently preparing.

Solution for Discounts: S-membership

           The 50th Students’ Union, Focus On, offered discounts at various shops, as part of its on-app service. A similar benefit will be continued by Solution at different shops with a new name called S-membership. Through S-membership, Yonseians will be able to receive discounts in their purchase of certain products. It offers the discount benefits around Sinchon and Songdo, and also around Hong Ik University and Ewha Women’s University.

           Through the S-membership, discounts can be received at restaurants, cafes, optical shops, movie theatres, various academies and more. Last year, students were able to receive discounts at places, such as Papa Johns, CGV and Angel-in-us. This semester, discounts will be given at places such as Café Born, Pho Bay, Look Optical, Jessica’s Kitchen and more. The directions and specifics about the discounts can be found on Solution’s official website and Facebook page. On both sites, other places that provide discounts will be updated as well. The biggest difference however, is that discounts may be received at not only specific branches of a brand, but also at different branches of the same chains. Students had sometimes found it aggravating that they could receive discounts from only certain stores immediately around Songdo and Sinchon and this will now change.

           At this point, the question to how this service can be used may approach. S-membership is a smart phone application that can be downloaded from app stores. After downloading this app, one must log in using their portal ID and password. According to Noh, however, students may also receive discounts from showing their student ID cards. Through the S-membership, students will be able to receive discounts at the designated places.

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           The 51st Students’ Union, Solution, has promised a total of 100 solutions for Yonseians, alongside the three described above. Yet, if students do not take advantage of the solutions offered to them, no matter how efficient they may be, the solutions will rust away. Just as the quote “it is a poor workman who blames his tools,” perhaps it is a “poor” Yonseian who makes no use of the solutions offered to him or her. Live a less-troublesome college life through the use of solutions such as One Click One View, House Calendar, S-membership and more. Allow Solution to lend you a hand with the burdens you are carrying on in your life as a university student.