"The point they're trying to make is the leadership is pretty stable, " said Choi Jong-kun, professor of international relations at Yonsei University in Seoul.

WSJ: North Korea Bids Farewell to Kim Jong Il

That was when he was 12 years old and after he graduated from Yonsei University in South Korea he moved to the Graduate School of Architecture at Columbia, New York.

CNN: Minsuk Cho's dramatic architecture

That tough stance, while worrying to some, is likely to be a kind of "pre-emptive rhetorical deterrence", according to analysts such as John Delury, a professor of International Studies at Seoul's Yonsei University.

BBC: Anxiety in South as N Korea rhetoric escalates

"I don't think this latest spike in the cycle of provocation and response undermines her whole platform of seeking to somehow re-engage the North, " said John Delury, an analyst at Seoul's Yonsei University.

NPR: SKorea's New Leader Faces NKorea Nuke Crisis

The oldest university in South Korea, Yonsei can trace its origins to 1885 when a teaching hospital was set up by royal decree.

CNN: ASIANOW - Asiaweek