The time of my life in Seoul! Past Review

Academic rigor, intensity, resources, etc.

The workload was less than what I was accustomed to at my home university but this mainly depended on whether you were taking courses designated for study abroad students or courses that native students take as well.

On-site administration of your program

CIEE was great in helping the students get settled in and taking care of the things that can be difficult when you're in a foreign country. The excursions and the extra trips that it organized were fun and memorable.

How satisfied were you with your living arrangements?

The international dorm at Yonsei, SK global house, is very conveniently located inside the campus. It has a convenience store and restaurants on the 1st floor and all the rooms, whether it be double or single, has its own bathroom. They give you sheets when you move in but you can always go down to the convenience store for any other toiletries that you might need.

Food in Korea was amazing. You can get a very filling meal for very little on the streets and the restaurants around campus especially are pretty cheap. Seoul offers pretty much every type of cuisine you can think of and it was always delicious!

How integrated did you feel with the local culture?

The trip to Japan was by far my favorite event that CIEE organized for us! It was so much fun and we got to explore Korea town in Japan as well. Other field trips around Korea were fun as well, we saw a lot of historical temples and learned a lot about Korea's culture through every trip.

How well were health issues addressed during the program?

Seoul is probably one of the safest cities in the world. Even at night, I was never scared to walk somewhere by myself. There's also a huge, renowned university hospital right on campus within walking distance from the dorm so seeing the doctor was never a problem. There were no health issues in the city at all and seeing the doctor or getting medication if you're sick is very simple and fast!

(1 = not very easy/$200+ on food & personal expenses/week, 2.5 = $100/week, 5 = very easily/minimal cost)

It definitely helps that you learn some Korean everyday. But if you really want to get better you have to put yourself out there a bit more and make the effort to get to know the Korean students and try and talk in Korean with them. Almost all the students including the native Korean students will use English to converse so sometimes I felt like what I wasn't putting much use to what I was learning in class. You have to consistently make the effort to speak Korean if you really want to improve your language abilities.

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• Dorm

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• International Students

• from start to finish i felt very taken care of and safe.
• excursion to Japan

• while the field trips to historical places were cool I felt like it would have been also interesting to incorporate trips that would show students what Korea's modern culture is like