Seung-Jae “David” Oh, a senior history major in the College of Arts and Letters, spent the summer of 2015 in Seoul doing archival research at the Diplomatic Archives of Korea. He gathered documents produced by the South Korean foreign ministry to get a better understanding of the bilateral relationship between South Korea and the United States.
His research will inform his senior thesis, focusing on a tumultuous period between 1979 and 1983 when a movement for democracy clashed with South Korea’s authoritarian government.
“My job is to take all these things into account and produce my own interpretation that will, hopefully, explain all these things in a way that is accessible and insightful,” he said.
The Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program, sponsored by the Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts, provides financial support to Notre Dame students engaging in independent research, creative projects, or the presentation of their research at conferences.
“The Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program at Notre Dame has afforded me this opportunity to really delve into a topic that I’m interested in," he said. “I hope this experience is a springboard toward either further research or further study.”
You can also watch this video on YouTube.
Originally published by at al.nd.edu on March 01, 2016.