My first semester as a junior transfer student, spent on assignments and finals
A recap of my first semester as a junior transfer student at the Korea National Open University — from assignment formats to how finals actually worked, and what I learned by fumbling through it
Transferring in doesn’t start at year one — it starts at year three. Which means there’s no time to ease in slowly through foundational courses like a freshman would. Before I’d even figured out how the school worked, I was thrown straight into upper-level major courses.
The recorded lectures themselves weren’t unfamiliar — I’d taken plenty of online training at work. What made it feel real was seeing the first assignment notice. That’s when it hit me: the semester had actually started.
If I had to sum up the semester in one line: midterm assignment, attendance-substitute assignment, final assignment, final exam. One assignment after another, without a break.
The programming languages were stranger than the unfamiliar terms
Once I actually started watching the lectures, a different problem showed up. A lot of the videos ran over an hour, and unfamiliar terms didn’t stick after just one listen. Statistical terms were at least somewhat manageable — words like mean or variance I’d heard somewhere before.
What was genuinely unfamiliar were the programming languages. Python, SQL, R. The names were familiar, but I’d never actually written code in any of them. Every bit of syntax felt foreign, and understanding a single line of an error message took forever. Every time I got stuck, I’d paste the code into an AI and ask what was wrong, working through it piece by piece.
Writing the assignments meant going back to check specific lecture sessions over and over. Sessions with code in them especially couldn’t be watched just once. Some sessions I rewatched two or three times. It wasn’t repetition for the sake of understanding — it was repetition to get the assignment done. But looking back, that process was the studying itself. Instead of watching a lecture once and moving on, going back to it because an assignment forced me to meant each line of code gradually became more familiar.
Getting a feel for assignment format from sample top submissions
The assignment format was daunting at first too. I didn’t even know how I was supposed to write it. Thankfully, the assignment instructions came with length guidelines — “within 1 page,” “within 10 pages,” that sort of thing. There was also a set template for the cover page.
But for the parts that were harder to get a feel for — how to cite sources, how much of a reference list to include — I only really learned by looking at sample top-scoring assignments posted in the school’s notice board. I could even look at top submissions from other majors, which helped me get a sense of how everyone else was writing theirs.
Even as I picked things up one by one, the deadline never felt real until it was right on top of me. Nights where I had to drag myself, exhausted from work, to open the laptop anyway. Moments of relief only after hitting submit past midnight. That pattern repeated all semester long.
Final exams: assume you have one
I got one thing wrong too. I’d assumed final exams could also be replaced with an assignment. They couldn’t. Only a handful of courses were designed from the start to substitute the final exam with an assignment — the rest had an actual final exam. I’d expected not to have one, and finding out otherwise, late, threw me off a little.
The final exam itself, and what surprised me
I went to a regional Open University campus and took the exam offline, on a tablet. There were more people than I expected. I knew going in that the age range at an open university would be wide, but seeing it in person hit differently. Students, working adults, middle-aged and older people — all sitting for different subjects’ exams. Regardless of age, there was something admirable about everyone sitting back down at a desk.
I could choose my own exam dates. I split 4 subjects across two per week. Sitting in the exam room, the atmosphere felt exactly like being a student again — the same quiet tension, the same people who bolt out the door the second they finish without looking back.
Subjects with calculation questions handed out separate scratch paper, and calculators were allowed. That’s actually why I picked up an engineering calculator — it’ll probably come in handy again when I study for a certification exam next.
What I have to show for it
I got through the semester in something of a blur. Once it was over and I got my grades back, I’d even earned a scholarship. It felt like confirmation that, despite all the fumbling and stumbling, I’d actually put in the work.
I spent most of the semester not knowing things — the assignment format, how finals worked, the nights racing deadlines. But each thing I fumbled through became part of my own manual for next semester. I was late this time because I didn’t know. Next time, I can start already knowing. It was a tough semester, but that alone made it worth something.
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