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An Australian has become the first foreign summa cum laude graduate of Dankook University. An Asian painting major, Cheers Carmen graduated first from the university¡¯s College of Art with a grade point average of 4.39 out of a possible 4.5. She received an honors prize at the commencement ceremony last week.
"The longer I live in Korea, the more I get to like it," Carmen said. "I want to teach Korean folk painting and language when I go back home later."
Carmen, 36, first came to Korea in 1997 as an exchange student from Australian National University, where she studied Korean. After staying for a year, she returned to Australia and worked at a company before coming back to Korea in September 2002.
Carmen first joined Dankook as an English teacher. While teaching students studying Asian painting, she developed an attraction to the genre herself and eventually enrolled in the third year of the Asian painting program.
She surprised everyone with her excellent academic performance, with a grade point average of 4.27 in the first semester and a perfect 4.5 in the second.
Because she has taken a particular interest in Kim Hong-do and Shin Yun-bok, painters of the late Chosun period, she created a parody work of Kim Hong-do's "Lunch" and fairy tale "Snow White" for her final project.
Now Carmen plans to study Korean again as a part-time student in the university's Korean Language and Literature Department. "I want to stay longer in Korea after graduating from the university, so that I can learn more about the Korean language and traditional painting," she said.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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