From Free Choice of Majors to Major Changes, Projects, and Teaching Methods… Redesigning Student-Led Academic Pathways

The major a student chooses upon entering college does not necessarily have to be the same one they graduate with. This is because students’ career paths can change at any time as they discover new aptitudes or gain experience through various activities such as competitions, entrepreneurship, and overseas internships. Kookmin University (President Jeong Seung-ryeol) is setting a new standard for higher education by significantly breaking down educational barriers—from major selection to teaching methods—to flexibly incorporate students’ evolving interests and career paths throughout their college experience.

Breaking Down Major Boundaries: Expanding Major Choice and Removing Barriers Between Majors

△ Major Exploration Fair

The most notable change is the range of major options. Kookmin University has significantly improved its major change and transfer systems to break down barriers between majors. The university revised the system—which previously limited applications to once during a student’s academic career—to allow students to apply freely every semester until the eighth semester. The timeline for changing majors has also been accelerated: students can now apply during the first semester of their freshman year and begin studying in their new major immediately starting in the second semester of their freshman year, significantly shortening the transition period. Through these system improvements, students can identify their aptitudes and career paths earlier and drastically reduce unnecessary trial and error.

These proactive system improvements are proving effective as a practical pathway for students to re-select their majors. Over the past five years, the total number of approvals for major changes has reached 978, and in the 2025 academic year, 296 students changed their majors—an increase of approximately 83% compared to the 162 students approved the previous year.

Kookmin University has implemented the Autonomous Major Selection System on the largest scale among major universities in the Seoul metropolitan area. The university has set the selection ratio for the Autonomous Major Selection System at 41.9% for the 2025 academic year and 39.2% for the 2026 academic year, admitting approximately 40% of all freshmen through this system.

The most distinctive feature of Kookmin University’s Autonomous Major Selection System is that students can choose their major after personally experiencing a wide range of disciplines. Students admitted through the Free Major Selection System can freely choose from most of the university’s approximately 50 majors, including the humanities, natural sciences, and arts and physical education. Rather than managing them as a separate group, the university integrates them with students admitted directly into specific majors, allowing them to participate together in classes, practical training, orientation, and club activities, thereby fostering a natural environment of interdisciplinary integration.

As a university where the humanities, natural sciences, and arts and physical education have developed in a balanced manner, another unique feature of Kookmin University is that the boundaries between majors are gradually breaking down even in students’ choices. According to the results of the first major applications for freshmen admitted under the Autonomous Major Selection System for the 2025 academic year, 25.7% of applicants chose majors in the arts and physical education fields. To accommodate situations where students flock to popular majors, the university is flexibly increasing the number of class sections. A prime example of this is the expansion of class sections for all courses in the Department of Visual Design from 42 to 57 in the first semester of the 2026 academic year, leveraging the university’s strength as a leading institution in design.

A robust support system has also been established to assist students in exploring and redefining their majors. Centered around the College of Future Convergence, established in 2025, the university offers a diverse range of programs, including consultations with academic advisors, mentoring, major exploration fairs, and seminars. The number of consultations conducted at the annual Major Exploration Fair alone reached over 3,000 last year. In addition, the “K-Smart Mentor” program assists students in exploring majors by providing multifaceted resources, ranging from major comparisons to employment information from alumni. Furthermore, the university operates the “Omega (Ω) School” to expand the scope of major exploration beyond on-campus classes and counseling to include off-campus activities. By linking experiences gained in three tracks—entrepreneurship, global internships, and experiential projects—to major changes, the university supports students in redesigning their majors when they discover new aptitudes and career paths.

Breaking Down the Barriers Between Academic and Extracurricular Activities: Granting Regular Academic Credit for Extracurricular Activities

Kookmin University has also broken down the boundaries between academic courses and extracurricular activities. The “Alpha Project,” implemented since 2018, is the university’s flagship program, combining the meaning of “Alpha (破),” which signifies “breaking an egg,” with “Alpha (α),” which represents a new beginning. This program brings students’ independent challenges—such as participation in contests, competitions, entrepreneurship, and club and academic society activities, which were previously confined to the extracurricular realm—into the formal curriculum and grants academic credit for them.

Depending on the nature and scale of the project, up to 12 credits are recognized as formal academic credits, and the university provides financial support for activity-related expenses commensurate with the number of credits, thereby creating an environment where students can balance their studies and personal challenges without financial burden.

△ KORA, the DIY Car Club

The Alpha Project has been proven through a variety of outstanding achievements. “KORA (KOOKMIN RACING),” the self-built car club at Kookmin University, is a prime example of the Alpha Project. Since students must handle the entire process of building a car—from design to parts manufacturing, assembly, and performance optimization—this initiative is considered a prime example of project-based learning (PBL). Through the Alpha Project, KORA has integrated the construction of their custom-built car and competition preparation into the regular curriculum. In the past, building the car required so much time that some students even took a leave of absence to prepare for competitions; however, by utilizing the Alpha Project, they now receive academic credit and activity funding, enabling them to balance their studies with the project. KORA achieved its best-ever results at the World Student-Built Car Competition, placing 4th overall and 1st in Asia, and continues to produce outstanding results, including winning the domestic student-built car competition for 10 consecutive years.

In addition, students majoring in Media Studies have won the Grand Prize in a slogan contest for the prevention of elder abuse, the Grand Prize in the Republic of Korea Blood Donation Contest, and awards at the Korea University Student Advertising Competition. Similarly, students in the Department of Automotive Engineering have continued to achieve tangible research results and accolades, including taking first place at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) competition, developing autonomous driving datasets and trajectory prediction models, building robotic arm and AI object classification systems, and winning awards for outstanding papers on mobile edge computing.

Reversing the Traditional Order of Learning: The “Experience → Theory → Application” Eureka Project

Kookmin University has also overturned conventional wisdom regarding the sequence of academic study. The “Eureka Project,” operated as an introductory major course for lower-division students, is a course that reverses the typical sequence of “theory first, then practice.”

In the Eureka Project, students first “experience” their major field, then use the questions and curiosity arising from that process as a foundation to delve deeply into “theoretical learning,” and finally “apply” this knowledge to real-world problems—following a “Experience → Theory → Application” structure. By allowing students to directly experience the content and characteristics of their major before delving into formal major studies, the program motivates students and maximizes their understanding of their field.

Expanding the Future-Oriented Academic System: Modular Curriculum and Integrated Student Support System

Kookmin University is not stopping there; it is preparing an even more advanced, future-oriented academic system.

The university is promoting a new system that allows students to explore other majors while completing their first major, enabling them to select their final major again upon entering their senior year. It is also considering a modular curriculum based on the “Learning Block” approach—which divides the curriculum into small units so students can combine the areas they need—as well as the establishment of a new “Liberal Arts Major” focused on general education for students who struggle with choosing a major.

Furthermore, the university plans to further strengthen its proactive, integrated support system by linking the “K-Smart Mentor” system with a “dropout prediction system” to identify at-risk students facing academic or career difficulties at an early stage and provide timely counseling and academic support.

Kookmin University President Jeong Seung-ryeol emphasized, “The core of the ‘boundary-less educational ecosystem’ that Kookmin University, now celebrating its 80th anniversary, advocates for is ultimately the creation of a student-centered—that is, learner-centered—educational environment.” He added, “Kookmin University will continue to innovate its systems so that students can broaden their range of choices based on the interests and experiences they discover during their college years, and ensure that those experiences translate into tangible outcomes.”