Planning my Study Abroad in South Korea

To be completely honest I haven’t really given the idea that I am moving to Korea at the end of August a lot of thought so far. I don’t really like to plan and just take it as it goes, which can just be my motto for every part of my life. This time actually I need to consider a lot more than booking a flight ticket.

The Visa, choosing courses at the partner university, applying for dormitory, getting insurance, it is just a little too much because I absolutely had no time these past weeks to take care of anything.

BUT the first step is done. I booked my flight to Seoul, South Korea. I will be arriving on the 28th of August, probably stay for two or three nights and then head down to Busan via train around the 31st, which is also the earliest moving in date. Classes will officially start on the 1st of September I believe.

I got my exam grades back and I have no resits this quarter which is such a release honestly! Mostly because I am moving the day after the resits would have taken place and I kind of have to at least make some plans before leaving for Panama. But let’s put Panama aside and just talk about things that I need to take care of before leaving for South Korea. 

Visa 

Since I will be staying for more than 90 days and I will be studying in the country as well I have to apply for an exchange student visa. This will be done at the Korean embassy in your home country which is responsible for your county or municipality. That would be Frankfurt for me but the problem is that it is quite far away. I didn’t have time to go there and it will take approximately two weeks until the visa is issued and you get your passport back which is a little risky for me right now because I need my passport for Panama. I will only have ten days after getting back from Panama before leaving for Korea and I will have to do it then so I don’t know if this is going to work out. I guess worst case scenario, I will get an express passport and try to apply for the visa from inside of Korea. I also couldn’t go to the embassy earlier because I was waiting for the official acceptance letter from the university which has just arrived this week.

Dormitory

Obviously I will have to take care of housing and look for a place to live. I can apply for housing on the university campus which I still have to do and then hopefully I will get a place there. I looked up hostels just in case and they have quite cheap hostels in Busan so if I don’t have anything in the beginning I will just go there for a couple of weeks. At least it will not get boring in a hostel.

Insurance

I really am not an expert on this particular topic. But yeah I need travel insurance and I need to provide proof of that to the university until the end of July.

Buddy Program

There is this program, where you get assigned to a Korean student and they will help you out a little if you have got any questions. They can also pick you up from the airport if you like. I will be arriving by train so I won’t be traveling to the airport just so that I can get picked up from there. But I thought it would be a nice idea to apply for that program and meet some new people. 

Course selection

This is still around a month away but I already had to get my courses approved from my home university so I would get the credits at the end. Turns out, the courses are pretty bad and there were not a lot of courses that I could choose from unless I was going for more statistics (which I wasn’t). So to conclude, it was quite hard to select a coherent course package and motivate it properly to get it approved. In the end I did but I if I get my chosen courses is still a question for itself, since I will have to apply from Panama and I am only able to access the page with Windows and Internet Explorer. Yes you guessed right, I have neither. 

Flights 

I kind of need to get to Korea somehow! But at least I got that taken care of already. I’m scared to check my bank account because I had to just book a one way flight which was so much more expensive than a return ticket. Like price per flight and not literally but I wanted to keep my options open and see where I want to go after. I will also finish university two days before Christmas so I probably won’t be flying home straight away because it’s going to be so expensive, especially if I can’t book anything in advance. Did I mention that I booked myself a cheeky little stopover in Abu Dhabi? I’m so excited!!

And that is it I believe. All the major things that I have to take care of before studying abroad in South Korea. They are kind of obvious, but I wanted to give a little update as well on how it is going so far and that you have an idea of how stressful my life is like right now (just kidding).

Overall I am really excited, I can’t wait to have a little break from the Netherlands and this university and discover a new place, not just by traveling through it but by actually getting to live there for a while.