Launched in the year 2000, the University College (hereafter UC) is the culmination of Yonsei University's persistent effort to leap forward with its new educational creed. In 1996, Yonsei moved away from placing students directly into individual departments, placing them instead into General Areas (hereafter GA). Yonsei has since undergone some minor revisions. The GAs are now under the jurisdiction of UC. Applicable to University freshmen for the year 2001, UC is moving away from the more inclusive 6-GA system (Humanities, Social Sciences, Natural Sciences, Engineering, Medicine/Dentistry and Music/Physical Education) to a more concentrated 8-GA system(Humanities, Social Sciences, Natural Sciences, Engineering, Theology, Human Ecology, Medicine/Dentistry/Nursing and Music/Physical Education). The Social Sciences area has undergone another division into 5 GA areas; the Social Sciences area (for entrants in the year 2006 only), College of Business and Economics, School of Business, College of Social Science and College of Law. Because of the special nature of their fields of inquiry, 2 GAs (Medicine/Dentistry and Music/Physical Education) will be receiving entrants directly for immediate training in their respective fields. Entrants to the other ten GAs(including Nursing) will become part of UC upon matriculation and will be asked to fulfill the basic requirements set forth by UC (for details of UC requirements, see Tables 2 and Table 3 below). In the Medicine/Dentistry/Nursing GA, only those applying to Medicine and Dentistry will receive entrants directly into their fields. Those who wish to major in Nursing will initially be a part of UC.

University College is working to fulfill the following goals:
1) to provide opportunities for acquisition of knowledge and training in a variety of fields;
2) to broaden the scope of selection from which to choose a major;
3) to encourage creativity and the development of ethical standards in students;
4) to provide better academic counseling services.

Toward achieving these goals, University College has established the following guidelines:
1) diversify and increase the number of courses offered by UC to provide for a truly "liberal" education [the courses fall into the following five categories: UC Basic, UC Requisite, GA Basic, UC Elective and Exploratory Major (hereafter EM)];
2) encourage the declaration of multiple majors, which may span across different GAs (for this purpose the minimum grade point requirement for declaring a major has been lowered to 36-54 grade points);
3) strengthen academic counseling services by implementing the Academic Advisor system (Yonsei is first to implement such a system in Korea).