Week 6 in Seoul, South Korea

By:

Isaiah Richardson

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Isaiah Richardson

<i>"Hello" in your host country's language:</i> ์•ˆ๋…•ํ•˜์„ธ์š” <i>Home Institution (your U.S. University/College):</i> Western Kentucky University <i>Expected graduation year:</i> 2023 <i>Destination city & country:</i> Seoul, South Korea <i>Program provider:</i> Yonsei University <i>Major/minor:</i> Computer Science <i>Demographics:</i> First-generation college student Biracial (African American and Caucasian) <i>Future career aspirations:</i> After I graduate I want to work in U.S. a little while as a software engineer, and then eventually move to South Korea and work as software engineer. <i>Top 3 goals for your time abroad:</i> While I am abroad I want to learn more about the Korean culture. Enhance my software engineer skills by learning about the different approaches to problem solving. Get involved in different student organizations.

This is my final week before I begin my classes. My friends and I moved into our new places and got to know our new neighborhood. We also had to go to Yonsei University to receive our student IDโ€™s.

Before I begin with this week’s vlog, I want to talk about Saturday last week. Last week as I said in my week 5 blog I visited Busan, South Korea with my friend. Since we were so close, we also went and visited one of my friends in Jinju, South Korea. While we were in Jinju, we visited ์ง„์ฃผ์„ฑ (Jinjuseong) Fortress. Later, I met up with my friend and she took us around Jinju traditional market. I would like to say my favorite part of the whole trip was visiting Jinju. I love learning, and while I was in Jinju I learned so many new things.

Now to start this week’s vlog, on Monday my friends and I finally moved in with our other friends who are also studying at Yonsei University. The area we moved into is almost perfect. We are right in front of Seoul Station which is super convenient if we have to travel anywhere. We are also next to multiple restaurants, convenient stores, and markets! Tuesday was very long as we did a lot of shopping for the new apartment. Tuesday I also had to figure out how I was going to take my Korean placement exam Wednesday. The explanation was pretty simple and straightforward but I was still very nervous for tomorrow.

Wednesday came alone and I worked on my placement exam. It was online and there were two portions of the test, speaking and writing. I tried my best but my guess is I will be placed in either level 1 or level 2. Results will be posted August 30th and I will know for sure. This means in my first week of classes I will not have Korean language class! Either way I am super excited to take my Korean class. I have only taken regular language classes and the Korean class I am taking is an intensive course which I am hoping is super challenging!

Thursday I decided to relax a bit. I decided to walk around my new neighborhood more and I discovered a very nice PC room I plan to visit in the future. Friday, my friends and I went to Yonsei to pick up our student IDโ€™s. I got to see Yonseiโ€™s beautiful campus and I loved every moment I was walking around.

This coming week is what I have been preparing for! I am super excited to finally take my classes and learn. I will be back next week with how my classes went and where I placed for my Korean language class!