Speaker 1: One time I ate it like as my first meal after class and I got a little of the bruns. Stomach was not feeling good, I had to stop by McDonald's to take a little pit stop before I had to head back to my dorm. Hello everyone, my name is Brittany and welcome to my channel. I'm going to be teaching you how to study abroad, specifically in Korea. So as you guys may know, I have been studying abroad in Korea over the past summer with the many vlogs I have put out. And I'm just going to be showing you my application process, what I did, housing, food recommendations, and also little tricks and tips I have for you guys. So the main reason I wanted to study abroad was because it was one of my goals in my college years. I never thought that I would actually do it myself. And I know you could always visit a country, but it's just different when you study abroad because you have a group of people that are just all there who just wanted to get that same experience as you. And that's how I met all my friends there. Most of us didn't plan to go with anybody, we just went by ourselves. You get to live there, you get to explore new foods and new places. It's just an experience like no other. So I attended UCI and they have a UCEAP program which was all the UC universities with a study abroad program. They had different programs with different countries and they had it for each quarter slash semester. So there was fall, winter, spring, and summer. I knew I wanted to go during summer because that was the only time I had available. I went with Yonsei University. The program lasted for about six weeks. Three main websites that I used was the UCI Abroad website and then the UCEAP website and then also the Yonsei website. Basically the UCI Abroad website was just to tell UCI that you are going to apply for the program. The UCEAP website is where you see your main information such as your prices. The estimated budget for this program that I did with UCEAP was around $10,000. That included campus fees, UCEAP fees, UC fees, and personal expenses such as food and your housing and airplane ticket. The university I chose to attend was Yonsei. The Yonsei website is where you do your housing, classes, and the Yonsei website was kind of finicky. People had problems signing into the website when we had to do housing. So you just have to make sure your username and password works. You gotta look at the eligibility of the programs. Eligibility was being a sophomore or higher and having a minimum of 2.0 GPA. There was also no major restrictions and no cap for my program because it was during summer and I think they just let anyone in it. I remember throughout my process applying for Yonsei, they were really good at emailing you. Sometimes if they don't, you could just reach out to them and they would reply pretty quickly. They would give you step-by-step pictures on how to apply for housing and your classes. Moving on to housing. So basically for housing, two main housings called SK Global and IHouse. And I stayed in IHouse. The housing for Yonsei for SK and IHouse is only about a 10-12 minute walk to the main campus which isn't too bad. The only thing is that I did not know that the campus was so hilly. There was so many uphills I had to take to go to class and it was also summer so I was sweating so bad. But it was all good because it was a workout every day. But basically two main differences between those two is that SK is for boys and girls and they allow singles and doubles with bathrooms included. And then IHouse is all girls and it's only communal showers. And then both of those housings are like close together to each other which was pretty convenient. But then I know there's also one more housing option called Wujianhuan. And I knew a few people that were there but it all depends on the program that you have and what you applied for. I think the main thing is your preference of wanting to share a bathroom with like your whole floor or just your roommate. And also the pricing as well. And the housing application was pretty smooth for me because I was so prepared. I know that a lot of people were saying that housing fills up really quick especially if you want a single room. But I actually didn't want that because I got the cheapest option. It was about only like $600 or $700 USD for housing. You just pay one big payment at the beginning and then you're good for the whole program. This was only for the summer program so I'm not sure about fall and winter. And also for housing I used a wire transfer to pay my payment. It was a website called Wise and it was pretty easy to use. They give you all the banking information to send to and you just need to insert yours. And it also does the currency conversions for you so it was pretty easy. My experience at IHouse was pretty good. I thought that they gave a lot of storage for how much space you had. The whole side of the wall is yours. They have a bunch of drawers for you to put your clothes in. You also have a mini refrigerator that you share with your roommate. You didn't need to clean your own showers or bathroom because there are cleaning ladies that come to clean like every other week maybe or every week. The only thing is that between the time they clean and the time they clean again it gets kind of messy. You just gotta deal with it. And also this was like my first experience living with a communal bathroom because I've never dormed before in college. It was okay for the most part. Another thing about the housing is the laundry situation. The dryers do not work that great and also the laundry. The ratio from washers to dryers was not even. It was like 5 washers I think and there was only 4 dryers. Also the dryer did not work that good so sometimes people would go have a second load of drying and that would make the ratio for someone who's washing mess that up. So there were a couple times where I just ended up taking my wet clothes back upstairs and just hung it onto the drawers I had because I was not waiting for someone to finish drying their clothes that late in the night. Do your laundry during non-peak hours. Whenever I tried to do laundry it was always filled for some reason so I just had bad luck doing laundry there. One of the good things about iHouse was our AC was pretty good. So we used it a lot during the summer because it was so hot and humid and we had that on like 24-7 I think. But it was worth it. And also for SK Global to go more into the housing there, they have boys on the first 2 levels and it's just girls all the way up. I saw the singles for one of my friends and it was pretty big so it was pretty nice. The doubles is a 2 bed 1 bath situation so you have your own bathroom that you share with your roommate only. But the only thing is that you gotta clean your own bathroom. People were buying like cleaning supplies and also they didn't have their own trash cans as well so they had to buy their own trash cans and stuff. I'm not sure about the laundry situation for SK but I remember passing by the laundry room. It's like way bigger but I know that SK has more people living there. Make sure your logins are all good and work. Also have your Yonsei ID number ready so that you can just copy and paste it. I recommend you doing is buying your own sheets and maybe your own blanket. Buy one before you go and then have it compressed. You can just leave it there because the sheets are not that clean. I remember I was cuddling up with the blanket and then once I woke up I looked through my blanket and there was a huge blood stain on it. It wasn't mine. It was so nasty. I like folded it up, put it away and then I used my sister's blanket that she gave me. And I'm also not sure how well they clean the bedding and the sheets before they give it to you. So I just recommend you bringing your own or buying your own when you get there. And an overview of how the classes worked was basically the same I think with the college class I attended. What I did was just unit classes because that was actually my last quarter that I took to finish up my major at UCI. So I just needed to take extra units to complete my whole degree. The UC unit ratio was 1.5 UC units. So basically one unit for Yonsei was 1.5 UC units. The two classes I took was from Mozart to K-pop musical narratives and Korean cinema. And those two were pretty fun to take. Korean cinema we just watched a bunch of Korean movies. I kind of enjoyed it because I like watching movies. Also for the K-pop one we got to make our own music video so that was pretty cool. And those two classes were both 3 units for Yonsei but transferred as 4.5 units for UC. The classes I took were all morning classes because I wanted the rest of my day to be free to explore and do whatever I want after I finish school. My classes were from 9 to like 1pm I think or 12.45 something like that. And also we had class only from Mondays to Thursdays so we had Friday free. The only thing that I found differently for Yonsei classes or probably just Korean classes in general was that they take attendance very seriously. Like they counted towards your grade. There's an app called YOTEN. They give you a code every morning for class and then you have to check in within the 5 minutes that they give you the code. And it was kind of stressful at first. If you miss like 7 or more classes you automatically fail the class. You just gotta make sure you go to class. They didn't offer a food meal plan but I'm not sure if that's normal or if it's just during summer. There's a lot of walkable food areas for you. They have cafeterias which are very cheap. And there's also Emart right next to the housing area. So it's pretty convenient to just grab food. There's also an area called Seonchon right in front of the main campus. And it's not that far of a walk either. It's like a 20 minute walk. 25 minute maximum probably. And in that Seonchon area there's food, shopping, and it has a lot of cheap food. Good food as well. Place I recommend you eating is at this cold noodle place. Which is right next to one of the Donghulu place. I don't know what the cold noodle place is called. But I've ate there like 3 or 4 times. But also don't eat it on an empty stomach. Cause one time I ate it like as my first meal after class. And I got a little of the bronze. And it was not good. I was walking back and my stomach was not feeling good. I had to stop by McDonald's to take a little pit stop before I had to head back to my dorm. Now for some tips that I have for you for studying abroad. And this could be not only for Korea but also studying abroad in general. You should always join the Discord, Instagram groups, or group chats that they have for study abroad. Cause that's how you'll be able to meet more people and see hangouts that are being made. You could also just ask your questions that you have on the application process. Because everybody is going through the same thing. Another tip is to go to the study abroad events that your college hosts. There would probably be people that went to study abroad already. You could talk to about their experience. You could meet people that want to go to study abroad as well. You also don't need to have someone to go with to study abroad. You would meet so many people once you're there. This is another tip I have but it's not really necessary. Even I didn't do this. Try to make a list of everything you want to do in Korea. Basically like foods you want to try, cafes you want to go to. While I was there I had like a bunch of TikToks saved. Didn't have it all organized so we would go out and then we would come back and rest. And the whole time I was just making my list of what to do. So it was pretty hectic but it was fun. Research what the weather is like at the country you're living in. Pack accordingly. I knew that Korea was going to be hot. My sister told me that it was going to be hot. But I did not realize how hot it was going to be. I brought like 5 pairs of jeans and 2 pairs of shorts. And I was re-wearing those shorts over and over for the past 6 weeks. That's all I have for today and if you have any other questions please leave it in the comments down below. And remember to subscribe. And thank you for following me on this journey to study abroad. Good luck on your study abroad journey and see you guys next time. Stay tuned for the Jeju vlogs.