International Semester Program operated by Prof. Lee Gang-gi of Department of Offshore Plant Management of Korea Maritime and Ocean University(KMOU) is highly received as a field oriented international program. Being an exchange program with a world leading shipping and shipbuilding country of Denmark, the program is particularly attracting great attention.

"I believed that we'd better not to compete with universities in Seoul but to turn our eye to overseas as more than 90% of large-scale shipbuilding and offshore plant orders come from European countries. This is why I want to help my students to form a global network”, said Prof. Lee.

The International Exchange Program, which began in 2014 with the University of Copenhagen Ocean Engineering and Technology Management (MSK) and the Aarhus University of Marine Science and Technology (AAMS), has so far been participated in by 53 students from the two Danish universities or KMOU.

The 53 participants include 20 from KMOU and 33 from Denmark, indicating the number of Danish students visiting Korea being well above the number of KMOU students going to Denmark.

In general, international exchange programs with advanced countries like the U.S. or other developed European countries show much more participants from Korean universities than those from partner overseas universities. In contrast, the program operated by Prof. Lee attracted more interest from Danish students and is in fact attended by more Danish students than KMOU students.

Denmark is a country with the A.P.Moeller group, which operates the world's largest ship operator, Maersk, and is known as one of the best countries where KMOU students can make a network for global competitiveness.

It is important that Danish students come to our university to study with our students and to have our students go to Denmark and take classes so that their global competitiveness is enhanced and they form a network naturally. Some of the Danish students who once studied in Korea return to Korea to make an order.

The KMOU program is designed to allow students to learn not only basic knowledge of shipbuilding and offshore plant industry and basic design but also experience practices at fields like a ship and offshore yard. Classes are taught by faculty members with accumulated experiences at prestigious companies such as Hyundai Heavy Industries, Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering, and Germany's MDT.

“The program has now settled so that it is opened in two semesters a year and the Danish Embassy in Korea has even promoted the program, indicating that the program is well received. It is planned that other universities like from Spain will also take part in the program”, said the professor.

The success of the program is largely attributable to hard but little paid working by Prof. Lee. He has worked with researcher Lee Da-hee at the Green Energy Center to design the European-based curriculum and invite experts to the program and had to take care of every need from foreign students to help them to adjust to life in Korea. Going beyond the establishment of the international semester program, a more systematic support system is needed in order to establish the program as an exemplary international education of KMOU.