I’d agree with language and stuff but Metaverse deserves a department more?!
And the monumental clusterfuck that is kpop?!
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Yep, this paragraph is surprising.
They are to be replaced by new programs including Global Korean Language, Global Cultural Contents, Metaverse/Game Contents, Global Beauty Design and Global K-pop.
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Also good sport Alexey Lazarev, I would have burned any relation when nobody of all these supposed “comrades in Go” lifted a finger to defend against EGF’s fuckery.
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The university hosted meetings with teachers and students over the merger in November and early December and said that the reshuffle will boost the school’s competitiveness and sustainability while focusing on its unique fields
So, what was more unique than a department that they alone had in the whole world? That’s the kind of double standards that I find pathetic in such dry “business speak” announcements.
But let’s say for a moment that Go/Baduk is esoteric, dwindling, not worth a degree or whatever else.
What university on God’s green earth (they are a Catholic University) abolishes the math, physics, chemistry and philosophy departments (of all things) and replaces them with “Metaverse/Game Contents, Global Beauty Design and Global K-pop” ???
Let’s all hope for the bureaucracy to throw a wrench to this abomination.
If this gets any more publicity, I do not see any minister of education signing on such a plan and ever getting re-elected. If I was forced to sign that decision, I’d have honestly resigned from embarassment and gone up the hills to eat grass and live in a cave so noone would ever see me again and say “Look! there’s the dude that abolished maths, physics, chemistry, philosophy and baduk departments and signed on Metaverse, Global Beauty and K-Pop” … education indeed.
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Curious that
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I know I go against the wind here but I feel rather understanding of this decision.
For all its beauty, elegance, cleverness and history, at the core of it Go is still just a game. I’m not using this as a derogatory term, it’s a game I have a lot of respect for, but I feel like people are sometimes losing sight of what we’re talking about. In any case I’m not sure this really has its place as a university department.
Comparison is not really an argument but for what it’s worth I also note that chess has no university department dedicated to it either, despite being much larger and significant than Go over the world (after checking rapidly it seems a minor degree in chess might be launched this year in some place in the US, but that doesn’t really change my point).
I’m also rather fine with that. I think many kids were artificially forced into Go because their parents saw it as a strategy to optimize entrance exams, rather than due to a genuine love for the game.
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I completly disagree. Not only because that departement was founded and met students and professors for some decades, but also for all the people who devoted a major part of their life to it. Go is more as a game (It’s a sport culturally speaking in China) and has enough in itself to be studied full time to the highest degrees that a university can provide.
I stayed long time with some of these children and your appreciation is a bit of an insult for them and their parents.
Besides it won’t be a so good strategy either as it requires a lot for a small benefits.
Anyway it was a recognition of the place weiqi can take in education, which is denied now.
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I’m familiar with comparable reactions to professional artists and musicians, where their job is considered a “hobby” for many (including a common expectation that artists or musicians will want to work for free).
There is a significant group of people for which Go is not just a game, but a profession, there are people running full-time Go clubs, full-time teachers, and of course professional players. It makes sense to have a program aimed educating people who wish to do those jobs.
And it’s not the case that there are only minor degrees in other sports. For example, the US is quite famous for having colleges specifically focused on their sports program, even having scholarships for outstanding young players. I don’t see why one should treat Go differently.
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Are you also against “STAPS” (=sports) departments in French universities (over 20000 students in France)?
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To adress some comments:
Go is more as a game (It’s a sport culturally speaking in China)
Any game which does not rely on randomness could qualify as a “sport” (or mind-sport) when played competitively. So, sure, ok to consider Go as a sport but it doesn’t really change my point.
And it’s not the case that there are only minor degrees in other sports. For example, the US is quite famous for having colleges specifically focused on their sports program, even having scholarships for outstanding young players.
I’m not aware of any US college allowing me to majoring in basketball, for example. Yet basketball, like Chess for my earlier comparison, are famous and important sports with far more reach than Go, and with a ton of professional players (who never majored in “basketball” or “chess”).
Offering scholarships, or even implementing specific programs to help athletes better accomodate the time constraints between their sport training and their studies, is welcomed but is not equivalent to having a university department dedicated to such sport.
Are you also against “STAPS” (=sports) departments in French universities (over 20000 students in France)?
Not really. I view STAPS as a different thing as it works more as a department focused on the professional abilities involved in working in the sports industry in general (literally “science and technics of sports activities”).
I think most countries have some equivalent of a STAPS department, while not having the equivalent of a Go or other game/sport department.
I’m familiar with comparable reactions to professional artists and musicians, where their job is considered a “hobby” for many (including a common expectation that artists or musicians will want to work for free).
Eh… I’m not sure how it relates to my point, and thus how to answer it. To be clear I never advocated that only science/engineering are worth studying while art/humanities should be removed (and for the record I did not major in science). This sounds like a very far-fetched intepretation of my comment.
Anyway, I’m not trying to prove I’m right and you’re wrong. I just wanted to modestly present an alternative opinion since this thread has so far (unsurprisingly for a Go forum) been pretty one-sided.
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Just for the record, in order to become a professional sports coach it usually does require a lot of studying and years of experience which could be objectively like getting a degree in something.
For example:
If I am adding things up properly, in order to “graduate” as a “pro UEFA coach” you need minimum of 720 hours of training + two and a half years of practical work experience between the "semesters/lower levels of diplomas.
Granted it is not called “UEFA technical University department”, but in practice, that is what it is.
FIBA has something similar for basketball, that takes two years to complete and seems to be a very elite thing to enter (there are no fees, but it is 60 people max and you have to be nominated by your National Basketball Association), plus you’d have to deal with Svetislav Pecic 
:
Yes, granted Go doesn’t that the mega-money that football and basketball has to make their OWN academies, but that does not mean that there are not things to learn about those sports (I quote from the FIBA link: “strength & conditioning; nutrition; officiating; anti-doping; injury prevention; psychology; pedagogics and didactics”) for the academically inclined that want to be professional coaches.
So, just because Go doesn’t have the money to make such a thing independently from Universities and Public grants/funds, does not mean that having a Baduk department is not worth the trouble. 
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So it would make sense for the Baduk department to evolve towards a mind sports department (focused on the professional abilities involved in working in the mind sports industry in general)?
Read my post; I’m familiar with comparable reactions where professionals are seen as hobbyists in other categories of work. I’m not stating that you have that interpretation for those other categories, but you are calling Go “just a game” while there are people whose livelihood is basically Go. It feels similar to me to calling an artist “just a hobbyist”.
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I met some few players who share that idea that go is just a game.
If you meet pro players, like having the chance to watch a review of one game after a title match, when you feel all the dedication and what was involved in the moves, maybe you’ll start to see go differently.
For most of us we can say yes go is maybe just a game. Even on this, go still has more as the games i know. For example it’s good to make you a better people by practicing a lot of crucial things (balance, focus, reading…) in a shared activity.
So some of us mortals decide to devote a big part if not all of their life to the knowledge of go and they still exist after centuries. I will feel shy to tell them, you know go is just a game.
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Note that if you sign the petition, “By continuing you agree to receive Avaaz emails.”. You have to unsubscribe to not receive further emails about various causes. It was a waste of time, having to search why I was receiving such emails and unsubscribing, which makes me regret having signed this petition.
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I dont regret signing the petition at all. It is a pretty minor inconvenice imo, compared with the reason why the petition was put forward in the first place. And I didn’t reveive any mails from Avaaz, since I unsubscribed from the beginning. ><
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So, you didn’t suffer from the inconvenience but you’re telling me it was a minor one for me? Thanks for letting me know. It sorta seemed my time was wasted for no reason when they could have specified I should unsubscribe after supporting their cause.
I am comparing it with the reason it was put forward. The petition isn’t saving lives or anything. It is about saving a gaming department in a far away university.
Asking for support and wasting people’s time at the same time is not the best way of achieving support in the long run.
Online petitions are mostly worthless anyway.
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A petition about saving jobs, the dreams of the students that attend or want to attend and preserving the only department pertaining the game to which this exact forum is dedicated, vs getting some spam mail and hitting unsubscribe on a mailing list.
Am I understanding the comparison correctly?
Anyway, does anyone have any news on the actual matter?
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