Year Abroad in S. Korea: My Experience

Does it get sent to the uk for you? Or do you pick it up in Korea xD my friends and I are discussing all of this and getting ourselves nervous for no reason haha. Also I’m going to Korea for a holiday soon, would it be useful to create an account whilst I’m there just to have it over with or do they need specific banks that they would like to provide you with?

You have to set up a Korean bank account in order to pay dorm fees, make online purchases, get a phone contract, and to be able to withdraw cash at most cash machines - in other words, a Korean bank account is absolutely essential! I did take my Revolut card but there weren't many places I could use it and I was never able to withdraw cash at any cash machine, it was similar for normal visas/mastercards from traditional UK banks. My traditional bank card was more reliable at cash machines and shops (still pretty patchy though) but of course you need to pay international fees. The way I did it was use my Revolut/Monzo to transfer money from my UK account to my Korean account without fees, so it's still handy to have, but not practical for everyday use. Your university should help you set up your bank account, but even if they don't it's not difficult to do

Hiii, so I’m in Korea now and I didn’t get the dormitory so I’m in a share house. My landlord has offered to help me open a Korean account so I was wondering if I should take up their offer or wait for SNU.
Also, does SNU email us about opening bank accounts? And should I wait for my residence card before I open my bank account?

Also would you recommend anywhere to buy groceries?

Am I right in assuming you can’t transfer money from your standard account like Barclays to your korean account without the fees?

Does the health certificate literally just refer to the TB test and in your case the measles vaccine? I’ve not been able to find anything online about a health certificate or whether it’s provided by the university OR if it just refers to the TB

Settling in at SNU
Hello! It’s been a while since the last time I posted and good god is there a lot to update you on… It’s been insanely hectic over the past few weeks so I haven’t really had a chance to properly come on here and write a post. So far it’s been a crazy experience, definitely a massive learning curve but it’s been a lot of fun too. This post will be a general round-up of what I’ve been up to and I’ll make more posts about the academics and social life another time. Still, if you have any specific questions you’re more than welcome to ask!

The first two weeks I was staying with my family and doing the usual touristy things. Stuff like Namsan tower, a load of palaces, Gangnam, and museums. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to do all of it because the mixture of heat and humidity made me quite ill so I only managed to get out for about half of the days, but we still had an awesome time and I got to see a lot. We were staying a short walk from Hongik Uni station which is in Hongdae so the area was perfect for sightseeing. If you ever come to Korea as a tourist rather than a student it’s a fun area to be in so I’d definitely recommend it! It was nice to be able to show my parents where I’d be living for the next year and they had a really great trip too. It was also pretty helpful to have them help me with getting bedding and things like that which would’ve been quite a challenge by myself and the extra suitcase space was a godsend.

Then I moved into an airbnb by myself for a week since the dormitory move-in day was the Saturday before semester began. I have to say this was a really strange week emotionally because I went from spending all day every day with my family to being totally by myself in a new area I didn’t know at all. In Hongdae there are a lot of tourists milling about and the shopkeepers speak relatively good English so if you get stuck with something they can help you out. When I moved to Shillim (which is much closer to SNU than Hongdae is) I didn’t see another foreign person the whole time I was there and I spoke exclusively in Korean everywhere I went. That’s not necessarily a bad thing but it’s definitely overwhelming when you’re feeling a bit homesick and you just want to be understood rather than having to try to explain everything you want or need. But that week I also had my SNU Buddy orientation and a few days later my SNU official orientation which was such a good experience. I met so many people in such a short period of time so it was kind of intense but when you have a few SOAS friends to keep you grounded it makes it much easier.

On orientation day I had my placement test and I was placed in level 3 (a level higher than I needed or expected to be placed in). To be honest, I don’t think the way they do the placement test is the best. It’s much more heavily weighted towards written skills which, especially for SOAS students, isn’t what they should focus on in my opinion. Exchange students for the most part are more lacking in spoken skills so it’s confusing to me that they do it that way. So that led to me and one of my closest friends from SOAS having a less than enjoyable first week and being very frustrated and stressed. We both decided by the end of the week to go into level 2 instead and it was definitely the right decision because we’re both much happier now and have time to socialise which is nice!

Since then, the madness has continued and it’s maybe once a week that I get more than 30mins to myself in a day. With how active my SNU Buddy group is and how much homework I have to do, it’s a challenge to find a moment to take a breather but I’m loving it so much! In a lot of ways this year abroad so far has been everything I felt I was missing out on at SOAS. I’ve spoken before about how I decided to sacrifice some social aspects of uni by going to SOAS (which I absolutely do not regret in the slightest) but I couldn’t help feeling like I was missing out, since at heart I am someone who thrives on socialising and someone who needs to feel part of a group of friends in order to be happy. It’s not that I felt lonely at SOAS necessarily, it just felt like that part of my life was kind of unfulfilled and incomplete. Here I feel totally content and I’m having the best time! It's such a change from SOAS in almost every way, even the campus is as different as it could possibly be. It's absolutely huge and takes about 1hr30 to walk from one side to the other, it's on the side of a mountain so the scenery is absolutely breathtaking, and it essentially functions as its own mini city with how many facilities are here. It's incredible!

I’m so excited to share the rest of this year with you all, and I hope everyone at freshers this week is having a great time too! Just as a heads up though, I have a lot on this week and mid-terms are next week so I'm going to be disappearing again for the most part over the next few weeks. Still, I will be keeping an eye on PMs and mentions so don't hesitate to ask me anything you're curious about

Hey, Ella!

Hope you're doing well?

Just a quick question about your YA (I know it seems like ages ago now but honestly, I don't have many people to ask bc the department is so disorganised) – when did the first term start? I'm not sure if it's the beginning of September or the end of September/beginning of October like here.

Thank you and have an awesome day!