Hankuk University of Foreign Studies

Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (abbreviated as HUFS; Korean: 한국외국어대학교) is a private research university in Seoul, South Korea. The university currently teaches 45 foreign languages. In addition, it contains studies in humanities, law, political science, social sciences, business, medical science, natural sciences, and engineering.
In April 1954, HUFS was founded as a college for studying foreign languages in by Kim Heung-bae with its first students studying English, French, Chinese, German, Spanish and Russian.
In 2012, U.S President Barack Obama, during his visit to Korea, spoke at Hankuk University in Seoul about global progress toward nuclear non-proliferation.
Throughout its history, the university has been visited by numerous foreign dignitaries, including Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden, Joko Widodo of Indonesia, Viktor Orban of Hungary, Abdullah Gul of Turkey, Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj of Mongolia, Bronislaw Komorowski of Poland, and many others.
Hankuk University of Foreign Studies has over 50 departments covering Social Sciences, Eastern European Studies, Humanities, Asia-African Studies, and Natural Sciences. The university contributes to regional studies, with graduate courses in international and regional studies.
Since 2004 the closely associated Cyber Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, based at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, has been offering online courses in English, Japanese and Mandarin Chinese, as well as business administration, journalism, and mass communication.
HUFS runs a foreign language examination system (FLEX). The FLEX Center is developing examinations for 19 languages in addition to the seven languages currently administered (English, French, German, Russian, Spanish, Chinese, and Japanese). It plans for 26 languages more.
As of October 2014, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies has academic exchange program agreements with 431 universities and 139 institutions throughout 88 nations.
HUFS regularly ranks among the top universities in South Korea, especially in the fields of humanities and social sciences.
In 2020, eight HUFS students passed the Korean diplomat bar exam, the second most in the country behind only Seoul National University. In 2019, the school ranked third in the country with six successful examinees.
Under the foreign language certification system, students who have double majors are required to achieve certain scores on the FLEX (Foreign Language EXamination) test for graduation, apart from graduation certification. In principle, students need to receive certification on their proficiency in foreign language.
There are many languages in FLEX, including English, Chinese, Japanese, German, French, Russian, Spanish, Italian, Turkish, Indian languages, Vietnamese, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Polish, Dutch and so on.
Hankuk University of Foreign Studies has a school of law, making it one of the 25 universities in Korea which have a law school.
HUFS Graduate School of TESOL is divided into two concentrations: the Department of English Language Teaching and the Department of ELT Contents Development. The program offers late afternoon and evening courses for working students who are unable to attend classes during the day.
The university is composed of two campuses, the Seoul Campus located in Imun-dong of Seoul, and the Global Campus in Yongin.
The Seoul Campus is focused on major languages, humanities, and social sciences, while the Global Campus teaches additional languages not provided in Seoul, namely Polish, Romanian, Czech, Slovakian, Hungarian, Serbian, Croatian, Ukrainian, Greek, Bulgarian, Central Asian languages (Kazakh and Uzbek) and African languages (such as Swahili), as well as engineering and natural sciences.
The university is currently planning on building a third campus focused on artificial intelligence and big data in Songdo International Business District, after having secured 300 billion won in investment funding from Korea Investment & Securities, Hyundai Engineering & Construction, and ZINOL D&C.
The Graduate School of Interpretation and Translation (GSIT) is a postgraduate education institution specializing in the education of professional conference interpreters and translators.
Founded in 1979 in response to the growing demand for international language specialists, GSIT currently offers master's degree courses in interpretation/translation in eight different languages: English, French, German, Russian, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese and Arabic. GSIT created the nation's first doctoral program in interpretation/translation in November 1999, to help stimulate research activities in the discipline, and has awarded 26 Ph.D. degrees as of 2012. It became the first Asian education institution to join CIUTI (Conférence Internationale Permanente d'Instituts Universitaires de Traducteurs et Interprètes) in 2004. GSIT is equipped with an international conference hall which provides for simultaneous interpretation services in eight different languages, lecture halls equipped with simultaneous interpretation booths, multimedia classrooms, group study rooms, a satellite broadcast resources center which provides access to 110 channels in 30 languages, a library, and a computer lab.
The GSIAS has concluded numerous MOUs and cooperative relationships with institutions within and outside Korea, such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MOFAT), the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MEST), the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy (KIEP), the National Research Fund (NRF), the Seoul Development Institute (SDI), etc., to carry out various research projects. It also created in early 2010 a GSIAS-affiliated think-tank, named the Center for International Cooperation and Strategy (CICS), aimed at facilitating policy-relevant research activities and outreach programs. The Center hosted a major international conference in June 2010 under the title "Towards an East Asian Community: Why and How?" In December 2010, CICS organized a high-level Korea-Middle East Forum in Cairo jointly with the Al-Ahram Institute for Strategic Studies and MOFAT.
In the QS Ranking 2024, the university was ranked 575th in the world.
37°35′50″N 127°03′31″E﻿ / ﻿37.597215°N 127.058537°E﻿ / 37.597215; 127.058537