Leaving the Gate: Korea University’s Winter Graduation in 2022

I remember coming upon a graduation more clearly than some events I planned to attend. I had finished something nearby and stopped at Korea University because I wanted to walk before going home.

I had been at a meeting at the Kim Hee-Soo Art Center. There was time left in the afternoon, and I did not often find myself in Anam with a reason to walk around.

By the time I passed the main gate, I could see that the campus was having a different kind of day. Families were carrying bouquets. Adults in suits crossed paths with students in gowns. Korea University held its 115th commencement on February 25, 2022, with limited in-person attendance in the hall and a livestream. Outside, graduates and families made their own gathering.

---

A neighborhood that gathers around the campus

Korea University is one of the three schools often grouped under the initials SKY, alongside Seoul National University and Yonsei University. The Anam campus is in a relatively quiet part of Seongbuk-gu. Much of the surrounding neighborhood is arranged around the students who come and go.

Both Anam and Korea University stations are on Line 6. Depending on the gate and the direction you approach from, the route can take you past small restaurants, copy shops, bookstores and cafés. From those tight streets the campus opens out very quickly.

The walk from the main gate toward the Main Hall is a view I knew from photographs. There is a gentle rise, a lawn and a staircase below the gray stone building. It felt more imposing at walking pace.

---

A walk through the university’s history

The university traces its beginnings to Bosung College in 1905 and took its present name when it became a university in 1946. The grounds offer plenty of ways to feel the time between those dates and the present.

The Gothic stone buildings are close to newer parts of the campus. The walk between them turns and rises, giving you glimpses of different buildings before you get a clear view of where you are going.

I found myself looking around instead of walking directly to a building. That slower pace seemed to suit what was happening that day.

---

Gowns over winter coats

Near the Main Hall, graduates in caps and gowns were taking pictures. Parents handed over flowers and friends took turns with the camera. Most of the people I saw were making room in the frame for somebody else.

The air still had the cold of winter. Coats and scarves showed under the academic gowns. Those layers made it feel like an actual February graduation, the kind that never quite looks like the one you would stage for television.

There was excitement, and there were also faces that looked thoughtful between photographs. Families kept finding new ways to arrange themselves in a picture. The graduates were the ones about to leave with their routines already changing.

Couples posed with flowers or sat together on the steps for a while. The campus had room for people who wanted a public picture and people who needed a quiet minute in the middle of it.

---

What stayed with me on the way out

I had no connection to the university that brought me there. Seeing the celebration by chance gave the small details a place to stay in my memory.

On my way out I thought about how much time people spend at a university between classes and before they go home. I had walked into the day when a few years of doing those things came to an end for the people around me.

I remember the private parts of the event most clearly: a family fitting into a photograph, friends taking a moment to say goodbye and somebody leaving through the gate.

I had stopped for a short walk. What I took home was the cold air and the sight of people gathering on the steps before moving on.