I’m studying at Sookmyung Women’s University this semester, and l love it here.
You may ask how an English-speaking American male is studying at a foreign women’s university. Well, Sookmyung offers nearly a hundred courses taught in English, and men aren’t a total rarity. Courses are available in nearly every major, so you shouldn’t worry about falling behind in your studies at Coe.
Seoul has some great things to do and see, and most of them are easily accessible. So far I’ve hiked three mountains, gone to the Demilitarized Zone, visited a naval base, walked through two palaces, and spent countless hours wandering through the bustling streets. Everywhere in the city is easily reachable in a half hour and generally much less.
How can I get to these places you ask? Well, Seoul has one of the best mass transit systems in the world. The subway uses a touch-pass card as your ticket, which is fully integrated into the bus system and taxi system. You can even use the Weon (Korean currency) you put on your card in convenience stores.
Living and eating in Seoul is delightfully healthy. One has to walk all the time, but you always enjoy it as you take in the cityscape. Once you get somewhere, all you have to do to find somewhere to eat is spin around, stop, and they’ll be a street vendor, a small restaurant, or a Korean BBQ place. Then you could get a fried pancake filled with a brown sugar/cinnamon mixture (Hodok), or a stone bowl that’s cooking your rice, vegetables, and octopus meal (Bibimbap), or sit down with friends to cook marinated beef and pork on a small stove in the middle of your table (Galbi). And how much would it cost? Respectively, ~75 cents, ~$4.50, up to $10 for a very nice dinner.
This last weekend, I went hiking in Bukhansan National Park just north of Seoul with another exchange student from Canada. Seoul is nestled amongst a lot of mountainous terrain, and so getting to a good place to hike is crazy easy. We were hiking for around 5 hours, all over the southern part of the mountain range. The best part of the hike was that we ended up at a 1300+ year-old Buddhist temple, with some amazing statues and artwork. The view from the monastery was to die for, and the whole complex was beautiful. We all meditated in the main room for a few minutes, which is full of gold plated Buddha statues. Then we walked up a 108 step flight of stairs to a Buddha carved out of the mountainside. So far that was my favorite experience in my month and a half of life in Seoul. And I’ve only scratched the surface.
I trust that I’ve left you curious about this fantastic study abroad program. Feel welcome to email me about the Sookmyung exchange if you have any questions, and talk to John Chaimov, coordinator of Coe’s study abroad programs. You can also direct your questions to Ellen Burns and Paden Chang, who have both attended prior Sookmyung terms. Even if you decide the Sookmyung exchange isn’t right for you, I encourage all students to go abroad so that they can experience living and studying in an unfamiliar environment. You should leap at this opportunity to learn things that no classroom can teach.
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