Four months in Korea

Evgenia Feigina's report on her studies at the University of Koryo

In the second semester of the third year of study I got an internship in South Korea's capital, Seoul, in one of the best universities in the country – Koryo. These months were full of different emotions and events that I will never forget.

 Before departure I was contacted by my buddy, a student of the Koryo Somyn, who had been helping me all the time. She explained in detail how to get to Koryo from the airport and gave all the necessary instructions. When we first met, we had been walking all day on campus, she showed the coolest cafes and shops and, quite the reverse, told me, where better not to go.

Studying was weird at the beginning. First, I chose disciplines I wanted to learn. Second, in each session the students do not start studying on the first day, they first get to know each other. I went to the blackboard and told them about myself, where I came from, what my major is and so on. What also was weird, is that we didn’t have seminars, only lectures. And we studied only four days a week!

Teachers in Korea are just something. Maybe I was lucky, but each one of my teachers were great. They tried to maintain cordial relations with students and even gave us coffee, fruit and snacks.

Education plays a very important role for Koreans, not only a diploma but also the quality of the obtained knowledge are most appreciative. I think the teachers did their best to share their knowledge with us and to organize the lectures, so that information during these three months was highly useful and necessary.

I had the most wonderful group. I can't say I made friends with everyone, but I maintained a good relationship with many. Korean students are very cheerful and love to take walks at least every evening, so every week we were hanging out. But since I got my assignments from the HSE, sometimes I did not have enough time for entertainment. Student life was very full: different festivals, sporting events, concerts, weekly activity with a group of buddy's.

I was not the first time in Seoul and have already seen all the sights, so my buddy tried to find something new, I really felt her support and interest in me, Somyn was always ready to help and cheered me up when I was sad and lonely in a foreign country.

I also met and became friends with the guys from America. They were very open and direct, pronounced my name really funny, but tried hard to say it correctly. One of them quite sincerely tried to deal with my indecisiveness, gave advice and helped, although we knew each other for like a month.

I should also mention the food. Of course, it was not possible to always eat out, but in my dorm we had a kitchen, so I could cook and entertain my Korean friends with Russian cuisine. They especially appreciated the pancakes and the fritters. Also, Koreans just love coffee: they just can’t help by go to the coffeeshop before classes and buy their gently loved Americano. And what about me, now I miss sangachaly and bulgogi, Korean grilled meat, all kinds of snacks and goodies from the Korean shops with gave you a hard the choice, I wanted to buy the whole range. And, of course, I missed picnics on the Han river with fried chicken that Koreans love so much.

I can write a lot about the internship, now some moments are forgotten, some of them you do not really want to remember, and some were quite ordinary. In general I can say that I never regretted taking this opportunity offered by my University. I will always remember the time when I to deal with life myself, with learning difficulties and relationships with others, remember of how necessary it was to break the language barrier and just live. Despite all the difficulties, the internship was a great experience and one of the brightest events for me, inspiring me to work more and have a desire to grow and learn the world and the people in it as deeply as possible and, what’s most important, more consciously.