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I commenced my studies here in Korea, at Kyunghee University, in 2013. It involved two years of course work, and in the third year I finalised my research and wrote my dissertation. At the end of 2015 I submitted the dissertation, had to give a preliminary defence presentation, and had to later defend my dissertation before five examiners on two occasions. Although I was very nervous about defending my thesis, in the end the defences were less grueling than I had anticipated. I was able to answer the examiners' questions satisfactoraly. The examiners' feedback was quite helpful. While there are parts of the dissertation that I think I could develop more fully, the thing I am most disappointed about my dissertation is that I did not have time to get it professionally proofread. Had I done so, I would have failed to submit before the graduation deadline, which would have meant that I would have missed the 2016 graduation and would have only been able to graduate in 2017. (The Graduate School of Physical Education only has one graduation per year, in February.)
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Me with Dr George Vitale who came all the way from NYC, USA, to attend the graduation ceremony. I am extremely humbled by this beautiful gesture of camaraderie. |
Many people ask me, now that I have a degree—and one in Taekwon-Do of all things—what will I do with it? The honest answer is that I don't know. I was already working as a university lecturer before I started with the PhD, so getting a doctorate fits within my career path. The question for me was in what field was I going to further my studies. I considered several other fields, but one of the deciding factors for me as an expatriate living in Korea was the uniquely “Koreanness” of this degree. Doing a degree in martial arts philosophy is something quite specific to Asia. I mean, I could have done a PhD in philosophy practically anywhere in the world—even East Asian philosophy could be done at an Asian Studies department outside of Asia. However, a degree in martial arts is peculiarly East Asian in nature. Thus I decided that as I'm living presently living in Korea, I should take advantage of this unique opportunity. There are only a handful of non-Koreans in the world with a degree in Taekwon-Do and even including Koreans, very few people that specializes in martial arts philosophy.
For those of you that do not know, the whole idea of having Taekwon-Do as a university degree was the initiative of General Choi Hong-Hi, the principle founder of this martial art. Gen. Choi approached the founding president of Kyunghee University and proposed to him to start a Taekwon-Do degree program; hence Kyunghee University was the first university to start a Taekwon-Do department. Kyunghee University's Taekwon-Do department is arguably still the top Taekwon-Do department in the country, and the university is ranked among the top ten Korean universities.
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