After 50 Years, the First Woman Student of Theology Department Returns to Yonsei Nam Young-Sook (71) visited the Yonsei campus with her children after 50 years. She will be returning to her program in the Theology Department in Spring 2009. “I haven’t been back since I got my graduation album. It’s been so long, I have difficulty getting about here. The campus is so much bigger now.” At the Theology Department office, she discussed her class schedule for next semester. “I never got my degree because I was one credit hour short, but the regulations have changed, so now they say I am two credits short.” Ms. Nam Young-Sook became a student in the Theology Department in 1957 as the first woman student of the department. “The Dean told me that I needed to stay on for another semester because I needed one more credit hour. I was all prepared to graduate after four years, and two days before graduation I was told I couldn’t graduate because I didn’t have enough credits. I felt like I was hit by lightening. And now I’m back.” She speaks calmly now, looking back on it, but her life had been hard. Due to economic hardship, Ms Nam could not register for her last semester to finish her degree. “When I first came to Seoul, I stayed at a friend’s house in Miari and traveled a long distance to campus everyday. My mother sent me the tuition from the money she earned farming, and I had to earn my own pocket money and money for food. Fortunately, I was able to find a job working as a Sunday School teacher at Changcheon Church, and they found me a small room.” She also worked part-time at the Yonsei Chunchu, the university newspaper, making corrections and packaging papers. Although she had to leave without a degree because of that one credit hour, Ms. Nam is not resentful. “I think it was all God’s will. It probably has some meaning for my life.” Though she never got a degree, she was able to teach English at a middle school because she did complete four years of education. In 1964, she married her husband and had five children. However, her busy life did not give her a chance to finish her degree. Still, she is very proud of her husband. “He is a playwright. He is an eloquent speaker and writes very well, too. He was successful in both business and politics.” Her husband is still an active member of their community. Ms. Nam’s family was originally wealthy. “Before my father passed away in 1950 during the Korean War, we were very well-off. During the war, the soldiers from the North killed him because they said we were a bourgeois family. After that, we were so poor that we had to take the rice the churches gave us and sell it to buy coal.” What sustained her through this period was faith. “If I did not have my faith, I would never have made it. Even now, I am active in my church.” In stark contrast to her strong voice, Ms. Nam’s hands bore the signs of the difficult life she had led. “I am so happy when I think about taking courses next semester that I cannot sleep.”