Becoming a Professor in South Korea: Insights and Tips

Take this with a grain of salt — this is just one professor’s experience.

Step Zero: You Need a PhD

To become a professor in South Korea, you need a bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degree. Some rare exceptions exist — celebrities or industry leaders occasionally get hired without one — but even most of them have a PhD tucked away somewhere.

Common Questions

• “Do I need to be from a SKY university?”

  No. You don’t. (For international readers: “SKY” refers to Seoul National University, Korea University, and Yonsei University — Korea’s Ivy League equivalent.)

• “Do I need a PhD from abroad?”

  No. You don’t. I got mine domestically, and here I am.

Salary: It’s Not What You Think

Here’s something that might surprise you: there’s almost no salary difference between professors at prestigious Seoul universities and those at regional ones. The gap is maybe $7,000–8,000 USD per year — not nothing, but not dramatic either. The real money comes from research grants and external projects. This is why engineering professors tend to earn significantly more than those in humanities and social sciences. They’re running labs, pulling all-nighters on experiments — honestly, they earn every penny. Meanwhile, us social science folks… well, we made our choices.

My university is a large private institution in Cheonan (about an hour south of Seoul) with around 13,000 students and about 500 full-time faculty. Most people in Seoul have never heard of it. That’s the reality — there are far more universities and professors in Korea than most people realize.