Syllabus · for registrars and credit review

999 Forum · Industry Track

Founding cohort, 28 June – 10 September 2027. Eleven weeks in Seoul, one industry per student, ending in a report presented at the 999 Forum assembly on 9 September.

Current as of September 2026 · 999-forum.vercel.app/program/syllabus.html

Credit equivalence

Designed against the Carnegie unit — one semester credit = 45 hours of student work, of which 15 are contact. The programme is built to support a 12-credit determination; an institution awarding 9 or 15 can be accommodated by varying the research component, and we will document either.

Component	Per week	Over 11 weeks	Type
Industry seminar	3 h	33 h	Contact · faculty-led
Research methods & writing	3 h	33 h	Contact · faculty-led
Site visits	4–8 h	66 h	Contact · supervised, groups of 20
Cohort session — the annual question	2 h	22 h	Contact · cross-track
Supervision	1 h	11 h	Contact · individual or team
Korean language (elective)	2 h	22 h	Contact · not credit-bearing by default
Contact total	≈ 16 h	165 h	excludes elective language
Independent research, interviews, writing	≈ 33 h	375 h	Directed independent study
Total student work	≈ 49 h	540 h	= 12 semester credits

We do not award credit and do not claim to. The 999 Forum is not an accrediting body. Credit is issued either by a partner Korean university under a co-operation agreement, or by the student's home institution on transfer or independent-study terms. This document exists so that a registrar has something to assess. Where the credit ultimately comes from is stated on the fact sheet, and as of September 2026 no agreement is yet signed.

The eleven weeks

Arrival Friday 25 June; departure by Thursday 16 September. Teaching runs Monday to Friday; weekends are the student's own.

Week	Dates	Phase	What happens	Due
0	25–27 Jun	Arrive	Arrival, housing, city orientation, emergency briefing and contacts, SIM and transport cards.	—
1	28 Jun – 2 Jul	Ground	Safety training — general and site-specific, certification required before any visit. Industry overview: how the sector is structured, who the players are, what the numbers say. Korean survival language begins. First site visit at the end of the week.	Safety certification
2	5–9 Jul	Ground	Research methods: interviewing, evidence, citation, what counts as a source. Reading the sector's public filings and trade press. Teams form.	Research question, 500 words
3	12–16 Jul	Field	The core of the term. Site visits in groups of twenty on staggered days, applied for rather than assigned, with a guaranteed minimum of four per student. Interviews with people doing the work. Weekly seminar continues; weekly supervision on evidence gathered. Indoor sites are weighted to mid-July and August, when Seoul is hottest.	Field log, weekly
4	19–23 Jul			—
5	26–30 Jul			Mid-term review — 10 min presentation, with invited peers
6	2–6 Aug			—
7	9–13 Aug			Evidence complete
8	16–20 Aug	Build	Writing. Seminar shifts to structure, argument and revision. Supervision moves to twice weekly. Teams of three to five; an individual option exists where a home department requires single authorship.	Full outline
9	23–27 Aug	Build		Complete draft
10	30 Aug – 3 Sep	Revise	Faculty assessment returned. Host company review — companies read what concerns them and may require removal of commercially confidential material. Revision. Presentation rehearsal.	Final report
11	6–10 Sep	Present	Final rehearsals. Thursday 9 September — the assembly. Cohort presentations in the main hall at prime time, to industry, government, academia and investors. Friday 10 September — closing ceremony and cohort dinner.	Presentation
—	11–16 Sep	Depart	Six days after the ceremony before the latest departure, for wrapping up and personal travel.	—

A typical week

	Morning	Afternoon
Monday	Industry seminar, 3 h	Korean language 2 h · independent research
Tuesday	Site visit — half day, group of 20, or independent interviews
Wednesday	Research methods & writing, 3 h	Team work · supervision 1 h
Thursday	Site visit or interviews · independent research
Friday	Cohort session, 2 h — all tracks, the annual question	Writing · field log submitted

Site visits are applied for. A student who does not have a visit in a given week spends that time on interviews, archival work and writing; the contact hours in the table above are an eleven-week average, not a guarantee for every individual week.

Assessment

Component	Weight	Assessed by
Final report	50%	University faculty, against a published rubric
Research question & mid-term review	15%	Faculty
Field log — weekly, evidence and reflection	15%	Programme supervisor
Presentation, 9 September	10%	Faculty panel
Participation — attendance, conduct at sites, team contribution	10%	Programme supervisor

The rubric

Evidence. Is the claim supported by something the student saw, was told, or found in a document — and is it sourced?
Question. Is it answerable in eleven weeks, and is it answered?
Industry literacy. Does the writing show the sector is understood from the inside rather than summarised from outside?
Contribution to the annual question. Does it connect to what the other tracks are producing?
Writing. Clear English, structured argument, correct citation.

Grades are letter grades with a numeric percentage, issued on a transcript of programme hours. Where a partner university awards credit, its own grading scale governs and this rubric is mapped onto it. Faculty assessing reports hold university appointments; the programme's own staff assess the field log and participation only.

What a student leaves with

A report, in English, with their name on it, published in the annual archive.
A transcript of programme hours and a graded assessment.
A certificate of completion.
A presentation delivered to industry, government and investors on 9 September.
The cohort. Twenty-five people who spent eleven weeks in the same industry, from universities across the world — and the Seoul-based students they met, who were doing the same thing from the other side.

Requirements and conditions

Attendance. Seminars and cohort sessions are compulsory. Site visits are applied for, but a place accepted and not taken without notice moves the student down the queue for the next — twenty places were held and a host was waiting.
English. All teaching and assessment in English. No Korean required; the language class is elective and not credit-bearing by default.
Prerequisites. None beyond enrolment at a university, typically years 2–4. Tracks state any subject background that helps, but no track requires a specific major.
Academic integrity. The home institution's policy applies, and ours alongside it. AI tools may be used and must be disclosed — a method note stating what was used and for what is part of the report, not an exception to it.
Confidentiality. Every participant signs a non-disclosure agreement with each host company. Commercially confidential material is removed at the company's request before publication, and a company may be described anonymously.