Reddit reviews Reassessing the Park Chung Hee Era, 1961-1979: Development, Political Thought, Democracy, and Cultural Influence (Center For Korea Studies Publications)

Ah knew it would be one of the two. Not sure exactly what subjects they cover in the first year at Sheffield but at SOAS we start with 20th century Korea.
The main two books we used were A New History of Korea and Korea's Twentieth Century Odyssey. These two books cover the whole recent history in general and then we had readings within this for each section (colonial time, war, Park Chung-hee rule etc).
I will try and give some of the titles I can remember.
Colonial Era- Colonial Modernity in Korea,

Under the Black Umbrella: Voices from Colonial Korea,


Offspring of Empire: The Koch'ang Kims and the Colonial Origins of Korean Capitalism

War: The Korean War: A History

Park Chung Hee- Korea's Development Under Park Chung Hee,

Reassesing the Park Chung Hee Era

And we finished on a section on Korean identity. Unfortunately the only book I can remember from that was Ethnic Nationalism in Korea.

Hope this helps a little. You do a year abroad in your second year right? Some of my classmates in my year abroad were from Sheffield Uni.