Established in 2014, the University of Utah Asia Campus in Incheon, South Korea has grown from 13 students to nearly 700 as of Spring 2025.
The campus celebrated its 10th anniversary last September. To celebrate, the school held a 2-day event which featured a gala, city tours, barbeques and a film showcase
Cecily Sakrison, the marketing manager for the Office for Global Engagement who helped organize the anniversary said it was one of the most memorable events she’s been a part of since working at the global engagement office.
“One of the goals was to create moments for everybody to celebrate with us,” she said. “So we created opportunities for students to engage in the anniversary, opportunities for the community at large, opportunities certainly for alumni, donors, faculty and current students.”
International education at the U Asia campus also gives U students networking opportunities with Korean companies and other uniquely international contacts as well.
“Korea is an amazing country. Its technological growth has been incredible,” said Greg Hill, the chief administrative officer and the dean of faculty at the U Asia campus. “You get these special opportunities in a campus that is also filled with state-of-the-art facilities.”
As part of Incheon Global Campus, the U shares its campus location with George Mason University, State University of New York and Ghent University. The hub provides a “global space” for students to enrich their learning experience.
“This campus is designed to not only give you a great University of Utah educational experience but also to provide global citizenship opportunities and to give our students a real cross-cultural experience,” Hill said. “We work together in a lot of ways to provide a global space for students and the community to engage in.”
With its student body’s steady growth, the Asia campus now offers nine majors for students to enroll in, ranging from computer science to film and media arts. Sarah Nguyen, the program coordinator for the Asia campus, talked about some of the benefits of an education abroad for students.
“They’ve had this experience where they go abroad and they have to navigate new systems, new landscapes, they have to navigate new cultures and languages,” Nguyen said. “So many times I hear them say that it was the best choice [they] ever made during their college career.”
The Asia campus follows the same curriculum as the Salt Lake City Campus with the same application process while offering a unique benefit with its smaller class sizes for students.
“Our students also get to engage in research opportunities with our professors there, which is a little bit harder to come by at the Salt Lake campus just because it’s such a big campus,” Nguyen said. “It’s just a lot easier to find internship opportunities, research opportunities and volunteer opportunities.”
