The AMES major requires a minimum of 10 courses, at least 8 of which must be at the 200 level or above. These courses should be distributed as follows: 3-6 language courses. 2 courses must be at the 300 level or above. Courses at the 100 level may not count towards the major. Students whose competence in a language exceeds the most advanced language course offered by the department may substitute these courses with literature/culture courses in their area of concentration. Please contact language coordinators to schedule a placement test. 3-5 literature/culture courses at the 100 level or above in the area of concentration. At least 2 courses must have an AMES number. 1-2 literature/culture courses at the 100 level or above outside the area of concentration. These courses must have an AMES number. Students must receive a C- or above in all courses taken for the major. The Korean language offers you a window to a dynamic culture and history more than 2000 years old. Korea has been a unified nation since the 7th century. Today, Korea is a vital and thriving economic, technological and industrial center in Asia. Its culture incorporates a blend of religions, ideologies and traditions from East and West. Korean is spoken by sixty-eight million people in South and North Korea, and also by millions of people in China, Japan, North America, Russia and other parts of the world. Learning Korean is a unique linguistic experience. While it shares some common structural characteristics with Japanese, Korean has a distinct phonological system and a unique writing system. The Korean writing system Hangul has been referred to as "one of the great intellectual achievements of humankind." It takes about a week or two to learn the deceptively simple and convenient system that encodes the entire language.