I’m confused! Till now, when people spoke of unigwons, I thought of a job where you teach kids, members of the public or students who don’t need it for the credit in a university’s language centre. Usually long hours, low pay, short vacation etc probably in the evening. In other words not uni students on credit-based classes.

The terms and conditions are all pretty bad these days so I didn’t think those made it a unigwon.

Recently I was considering a job that was different to that - university freshmen, credit-based program. No civilians, no kids, no evenings or weekends, between the hours of 9 and 6.

Yes it is in the Language Education Centre, yes the hours were longer than you’d expect (20), salary bog-standard at 2.2, vacation at 6 weeks rather than 4 months.

My friend said: “That’s a unigwon”
So is she right?

I protested “but it’s not kids! or civilians! it’s university freshmen students who have to pass the program!”

For me what made a job a unigwon was who exactly you are teaching: university students on a compulsory course (proper uni job) or kids/civilans/students who just want practice for no credit (unigwon)

Who’s right?

She seems to think the pay and conditions define a unigwon.

My point was that most uni jobs’ terms and conditions (bar a few great jobs in Seoul) are similar to those in the job we discussed, except maybe that the hours are a little on the high side/ vacation on the low side in this job!

What is the precise definition of a unigwon?

The same university was also hiring for a different program where you do teach kids in the evening for poor conditions.

Are both those positions “unigwon” jobs or just the latter?

My friend says if the job is in the language centre and not in a proper department e.g. the English department, then it is a “unigwon” regardless of who you teach.

Perhaps the job we discussed was some kind of hybrid? What do you think?