My Exchange program @ South Korea

Hey everyone, it´s been a while since we last wrote in the blog. School and real life has been catching up to us. This is my last semester at uni, so I am doing the best I can.  I thought I would make a quick post about my experience as an Exchange student in South Korea.  

Why I decided to go to South Korea?

Well, I love Korean dramas and music but the main reason was that I wanted to go to a place far away from home. I could have easily chosen the go to an American University, but I wanted more. A whole different experience and besides I don´t know when I would have the same opportunity again. I can go to the USA whenever I want since we are neighbours.

I applied via my home university, all my papers and contact was in Mexico.  I applied to KAIST, which is one of the top universities in South Korea. This uni is not in Seoul, it is in Daejeon but it really doesn’t matter. South Korea is small and thus you can easily travel from one place to another. My process took about six months and I had to get a student visa.

Dream Concert 2013 

Daejeon is a city about one hour time from Seoul. I was lucky to be staying at the dorms and the area around the uni is very nice. There are a lot of restaurants, drinking places and night clubs so it´s not as if you have nothing to do. Through the help of the international student association I had the opportunity to travel to others cities in trips organized by them (which are really cheap).

All of my classes were in English and I did not have any problem with the teachers but some of my friends were always complaining because sometimes teachers would not speak English and explain the hw assignments only in Korean. I felt like Korean students do not want to speak English, mainly because they are shy, so every time they ask something to the teacher they would do it in Korean. If your teacher is nice enough he will translate if not …then you would have to guess. In my thermodynamics class the teacher would sometimes put the ppt slides in Korean, luckily for me he  explained them at class. 

Namsan Tower

South Korea is a really nice place to go. Food is cheap and really tasty. My dorm fee was extremely cheap; food at school was cheaper than outside but the flavor was not that good. I would definitely recommend it to everyone who is thinking of going to Korea.

Note: My exchange program was from January to July 2013.