Quitting Mid-Semester at a University in Korea

Quitting Mid-Contract in Korea

I ran across this thread over on ESL Cafe. Even though I usually avoid that cesspool of misinformation that is Dave's Korean forums, I had a bit of free time between classes.

Quitting Uni Mid Semester

"A friend of mine who works at a mainland uni has been told that next semester his work hours will be increased, his pay frozen and housing assistance cut off. He is not very happy about this kind of treatment and is thinking about quitting mid-semester. He asked me about the ramifications of this. He has an F visa. Any thoughts?"

My response: quitting mid-semester is never a good strategy. Unless you work at a university, you probably have no idea how badly this screws over your university. Like quite literally, there will be classes without a teacher and especially if it's a small place, there might actually be nobody else who can take your classes. Your coworkers will hate you and you'll be the new hated guy in town once word gets around.

Plus, consider the grading situation. How could those students possibly get a fair grade at the end of the semester?

So, considering how badly this guy is screwing them over, I can almost guarantee that the university is going to go to any length to screw him over in return. Like any length. Phone calls to immigration? Terrible references (this one is a given). Phoning every other uni in town to tell them to avoid this guy?  Like there really is no limit to the badness that can come from this.

Even though this guy's place is going from good to bad, as long as they don't try to take these benefits from him now, mid-semester, he should stick with it until the end. And it doesn't sound like the bad things are happening now, only at some point in the future.

And, the ethics of it. You signed a contract for a certain pay for a certain number of hours for a certain period of time. You should honor that contract as long as the uni is honoring their end. Just because your uni is reducing the terms of your next contract, doesn't mean that you should break this one. It's just kind of ridiculous, actually and I don't have a lot of sympathy for the guy, at all.