Tried Michelin-rated raw beef and octopus at Seoul’s Gwangjang Market: 10/10

Author: Victoria Savage | Majors: International Studies, Asian Studies | Semester: January Intersession 2024

Hi! I am Victoria Savage and this January intersession, I participated in Korea University’s Winter International Campus and took Beginner Korean I. I am a senior pursuing degrees in International Studies and Asian Studies as well as a minor in Chinese and I chose this program because of my interest in Asian culture, history, and politics. I also love learning new languages so I was excited to study Korean and meet other students who share this interest. It was a fun class in which I learned how to read Korean and speak some basic Korean thanks to a really engaging professor and wonderful classmates. I was surprised at how comfortable the class became in communicating in such a short time and although it was an intense course, it was rewarding and made me want to continue studying Korean. Furthermore, outside of class, my friends and I practiced our Korean and improved over the three weeks (I even got to practice Chinese with some of them). I had class for a few hours each day and other classes offered in this program included Korean Entertainment, International Business, and programming, so students had many different course options, even if they chose not to study Korean language or culture. Professionally, I hope to practice international law in the future and I think this language course and experience in Seoul will be valuable for my future career, especially if I can work in Asia.

One of the top experiences I had outside of class was visiting the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) with a good friend from Incheon who I met in my spring study abroad in the Netherlands. It was also the first time for him and his dad to visit the DMZ and we each found the tour and overall experience interesting and impactful. The DMZ is the buffer zone that runs across the Korean Peninsula between North and South Korea and was established following the Korean Armistice Agreement in 1953 and is available for tourists in South Korea to visit with an application. We passed through military checkpoints to visit the museums, rode on the gondola over the river, walked through the 3rd Tunnel that South Korea discovered running from North Korea through the DMZ, and gazed out on viewpoints to see the landscape of the DMZ as well as North Korea itself. Even in the cold and windy weather, there were many tourists interested in learning more about the geopolitics of the Korean Peninsula firsthand.

I would highly recommend participating in this program! Korea University was a wonderful university and I really enjoyed my Korean class and the campus life. I was prepared for the cold and brought plenty of warm clothes and shoes but found that plenty of my friends from warmer climates were not so prepared. Korea University also has a longer summer program in which students can take two or more courses which might be more suitable for those who are not winter people. Overall, this was a wonderful program and I learned so much at the university and through my explorations of Seoul and South Korea with my old and new friends. Many
people in Seoul can speak a degree of English and it was not difficult to get around but it is good to know how to read Korean before going just to read signs easier. I hope to return to Seoul and maybe Korea University someday and I am very grateful to the Study Abroad Office and the Honors College in supporting me participating in this January intersession!