The secret of dunking unveiled by basketball players
The KU IWC students had a chance to learn basketball from the KU basketball team players.

On Jan. 10, starting at 4:30 pm, a basketball learning and experience course offered by the KU International Winter Campus (IWC) took place at the in-door basketball court of Tiger Dome, Korea University.

The 5-week IWC program, consisting of a 3-week Academic Track and a 2-week Culture Track, started on Dec. 28 with the aim to provide foreign students a wide range of academic and cultural experiences together with ‘buddies,’ currently-enrolled KU students who volunteered to support students from other countries. This year, a total of 467 students from 17 countries participated in the program. The basketball course, provided as part of the program, was designed for the program participants to have unforgettable experiences through a sport.

The presence of the KU basketball players added more energy to the court. After warm-up exercises, the participants were split into two teams and learned how to dribble and shoot a basketball under the supervision of the KU players. First, they were taught how to shoot a layup and given a chance to try their own. The players and students all cheered whenever a basket was scored. After learning the two lessons, the players and students started a mini game. Thanks to the players’ enthusiastic teaching, the participants felt more relaxed than at the beginning of the course and paid more attention to the game.

At the end of the course, students had a chance to watch the players performing basketball stunts and took a group photo with them.

Hyo-jae Lee, one of the KU IWC staff members, said, “It seems that we gave our students a great opportunity to play basketball with one of top basketball teams in Korea. Some of the participants today were first-time players, which made the event more meaningful as they learned and tried something new.”

Cassandra from the Singapore Institute of Management found the course very satisfactory. “I really liked that the basketball players helped us take a step-by-step approach to basketball. It was an honor for me to be with them,” she said.

Ho-yeong Chung (’18, Department of Physical Education), one of the players, said, “It was not easy to communicate with foreign students, but playing basketball together overcame the difficulty. Today’s event was a happy memory for all of us.”

Aside from the basketball course, the KU IWC has plans to offer more chances for foreign students to have new experiences through a variety of cultural programs including a Nanta performance, Korean cooking, and a ski trip.

This study holds significance as the first of its kind in exploring the possibility of machine comprehension in highly specialized areas. The proposed data and algorithms for machine comprehension have laid the foundation for follow-up research. The results were published in JMIR Medical Informatics in January 2018.