I know there have been several threads about study abroad but i don't think there is one for Yonsei.
So I want to see how many people on soompi went or are going to Yonsei University. Hopefully people
who went before can give us some tips and people who will be going can meet each other here. Plz post what
program you are going with, what term(s) you are going, where you plan to live, and your ethnicity.


Program: UC EAP (UCSD)
Housing: Im still thinking if I should live at I-House or looking for Hasoo jib.
Term: Summer 08 and fall 08
ethnicity: Chinese (i took two years of korean but yea...i can still only speak the really basic)

I won't be of much help.
But I think that it's really cool that you want to do that!

you go to UCSD? I'm going to apply there in my senior year. =]]

I actually want to study abroad in Korea, too! Yonsei is the one
that has study-abroad-program ties with the UCs, right?

I don't know Korean much either, I'm Indian.
But I really want to learn, I love the culture and everything!
=]]]

p.s. I saw this because you posted a comment on the Hollywood Bowl topic, and so I clicked on your link.
Good luck finding a way to take the program!

=D

I'm planning to do exchange at Yonsei too! They concentrate in Business.
But I'm going in the Spring of 2009.
You're lucky you've already studied Korean. They don't offer Korean at my uni (SFU), so hopefully I can go to UBC in the summer to take an intense 1.5 month course.
I'm Chinese too - from Vancouver.

What's Hasoo jib? Is that homestay? I want to do that.

The only thing that I'm a bit disappointed in, is that we'd be learning in the International campus so we won't be interacting that much with the locals.
I'm glad I found this thread (found it from HB thread too).

welcome to UCSD (if you are applying)
yea if you are going through the UC program, it's gonna be Yonsei

wha I am planning on going to Yonsei for fall 09 hehe

Many of my friends went there and has such a great time so they recommended me to go! I am in korean studies so hopefully we'll all improve Korean there haha

Actually recently I was talking to the exchange director and she told me that Korea University just offered 3 scholarship of 1000$ to go to study a year in Korea! Def it will affect my choice haha

wow didnt know we would be on the inter. campus...that kinda sucks in a way... well I guess it will all be about trying to mingle with koreans there haha I wonder if it's the same at Korea uni...

Yea im tryin to go study abroad at Yonsei in Spring 2009
I heard its a good program and I'm really excited because some of my friends that went last year said they had a great time!!

I hope somebody puts up some info that are not on the site for the program any experience stories??

I was there spring 2007 and it was amazing. I stayed at the Ihouse, met a bunch of wonderful people, ate a lot of good food, went to a lot of new places, and it definitely was my favorite semester in college.

I didn't know any korean except for maybe anyonghaseyo and saranghae before going and I still had a wonderful time.
People of all different ethnicities and personalities stay at the ihouse so you should be able to find people that you click with.

There are tons of restaurants, street vendors, stores, noraebang, jimjibang, bars, cafes, and stuff in Sinchon and E-dae (Ewha University area) which are within walking distance. Grand Mart in Sinchon is a good place to go for snacks and food to store in your room as well as daily necessities.

I got a buddy that's going in Fall '08 and I was going to go along to, but had to finish up my personal issues here first.

When I read the school's my school have connections with in Korea, I read Gyeongsan University, which I thought was pretty close because my grandma, and rest of my mom's family, lives like 10 minutes away from the school. While I have a cousin that's at Yonsei right now. So, I haven't decided which to go to.

I personally recommend you sticking with Yonsei cuz it's better!! No, jk. Actually, I had a few friends who studied abroad at Korea University and they hated it. They said that the international directors weren't that friendly and that the accomodations were horrible.. but that was a few years ago so I don't know how they are now. I'm currently at Yonsei and I absolutely LOOOOOOVE it. I took Korean Language courses last semester because it was required in my program, but I placed out this semester and I'm just taking regular courses with everyone else. The campus is really pretty and the people are REALLY nice~ I was actually considering transfering here, but my mom wasn't too pleased with me being away for so long ><;; But I'm planning on coming back after I graduate next year ^^


Program: OIP (Cal State)
Housing: Goshiwon (small room).. very cheap ^^
Term: Fall 07 ~ Spring 08 (current)
Ethnicity: Korean

I'm so jealous you're coming Fall 08~ I wish I could still be here~ YonKoJun (infamous athletic competition between Yonsei and Korea Univ.) is a BLAST!! And it's in October..

whaa thanks for your recommendation :-D Everyone says Yonsei's the best hehe!! guess the choice wont be that hard then haha thanks

Has anyone gone/known anyone who went to Ehwa? I'm thinking of going there my sophomore/junior years.

^you should have posted that in the study abroad thing. Also, i've heard really bad things about the Yonsei KLI. I heard that alot of people that when they finish, their grammar is really good, but like their speaking ability sucks.

hrmmm i will go find this study abroad thread =o

from what i heard from the people who went to yonsei
they all say it was really good

korea university is really good and suppose it ranks #1 in korea (Yonsei is #2)
plus with the scholarship, it might be good to go there then
but i think you should talk to your school's exchange director

u mean international campus? i think theres just one campus but most exchange students in the international dorm
just got an e-mail from the UC EAP office that currently there is construction going on at the I-House for a new building
a.....i heard the noise problem is pretty bad
now i may really consider living off-campus

anyone know any good haksoojib near the campus?

humm think that seoul national uni. n.1, yonsei n.2 and korea n.3 not sure

ahhh definitely I think haksoojib's the best decision!! not only can you practice korean but you're force to adopt the culture :-)

This is just what I've been told... but I heard that going study abroad to Yonsei University and other Korean study abroad programs doesn't necessarily help your Korean as much as you'd think it would (neither your studies). Many friends have told me that majority of the studious Korean college students ignore the "foreigners", treating them like tourist invasions. The only friends you make are those who are as bad as you (at speaking) and students who quite honestly don't care about school. Of course, just BEING in Korea helps a lot and Yonsei is (from what I've heard a lovely school), but this one little detail makes me hesitant to go. I'd rather study here instead of waste a quarter of my academia playing around in a foreign country. There's vacation for that.

I thought it was funny how winter and summer are the cheapest times to go. XD

i didn't attend but I used to hang out near the campus a bunch my senior yr of HS. soooo if you wanted to know anything about the social life/scene then i could tell ya

that's wonderful that you're thinking of studying abroad at yonsei.
i went spring 2007 and stayed in I-House.
i'm also korean so i stayed an extra month at my aunt's house. well, initially i was going to look for a hasook jib for that one month during summer but that costs money (maybe around $300 at the low end and probably no AC at that price. killer) and time (instead of looking around for a place i decided to spend more time with all the people i met there since i'll never see them again haha).

as for improving your korean, that is something entirely up to.
i specifically went for that purpose cuz my korean isn't too great and i'm also a bit embarrassed that i can't speak it fluently.
i picked up a few more words, learned some hanmoon, spoke a lot more fluently whenever i called back home to my parents. but when i came back i think i actually got worse haha.
my roommate who was chinese actually improved her chinese more than her korean cuz most of her friends spoke chinese.
i partially blame the layout of the campus cuz most if not all your classes will be on the east side where all the international studies and I-House are. you'll have to trek over to main campus if you want to encounter non-foreigners.
but mostly i blame myself cuz i didn't make that much of an effort to take classes on main campus and meet korean students.
there's clubs (yonsei international community & mentors club) that'll reach out to you so make sure to take advantage of that and keep in contact with your "buddy" that they're supposed to pair you up with.
there's also language exchange where you meet up with a korean to practice korean for you, english for them. it's not always necessarily a formal thing but you can just set it up with anyone. people post up ads in global lounge which is on main campus.

if you want to play late (bars, norebang, clubs, etc) then I-House is most convenient since most of your friends will probably live there. the disadvantage of living there is that everyone speaks english. you ahve to really make an effort to keep using korean. and being in a foreign place for so long can make you want to only speak english. you ahve to try to step out of your comfort zone haha that sounds really corny but it's true. don't be afraid to make mistakes. plus you took 2 years of korean which is plenty to get around.
hasookjib is good but you usually have to be quiet and sometimes they don't allow guests. rooms are also the size of a closet.
you could look for an officetel (오피스텔) which is more like an apartment, but it costs more.
there's deposits for officetels and probably for hasook jibs too. can't remember.
since you're going for 2 semesters you might as well try out I-House and then move out if you don't like it.

i'm sure you've heard of the 2 language programs. KLI and DIEE. KLI is 4 hrs 9am-1pm. DIEE is 2 hrs 4pm-6pm. you usually have to sign up way early for KLI and they have a different schedule. it kinda sucks for people who have 9am class cuz they can't stay out too late. but if you're a morning person and want to really learn korean, hey, KLI's for you.

EAP's a good program from what i've heard. i went thru ISEP. EAP students got to go to japan which i was really jealous of until i went later on in the summer AND randomly met ss501 haha anyway...
i mainly went thru ISEP cuz it was the only one at my school that had other korean universities like korea university. but everyone kept telling me seoul u has all teh geniuses, korea u has the country people, and yonsei u has the cool kids. but that's just something i hear from basically every korean parent. haha. i was still willing to go to korea u cuz i wasn't going to play. i wanted to study korean. but i ended up at yonsei. and played... oops

staff are usually nice. the program coordinator for the states changed so i don't have info on that. there's one really nice 경비아저씨 (security guard) for I-House but the other ones are kidna weird.

you'll meet so many people and learn a lot while in korea. i'm really jealous and hope to go back after i graduate too (i can't remember who posted that). whichever school you go to will be fun. yonsei might actually be your best choice for korea. in the fall, they have YonGoJun = 연세대 + 고려대 or GoYonJun in korea u. sports teams play against each other. akaraka is basically a rally takes place in the spring and it's to get ready for YonGoJun.

wow that is wayy to long of a post. sorry. i hope i helped. if you have any other questions you can email me. p2bandj@yahoo.com

have fun~

may be what you said is true
but i think there are just too much more with going abroad
study the language is only of the them
so i think even if my korean doesn't improve that much
it'll still be a good experience
you should reconsider

Hey, Hey, Hey! I'll be at Yonsei for Fall 2008! Awesome! Gah, I'll probably meet you there yeah? I hope.

ah, here goes:
Program: UC EAP (UCB)
Housing: I want to do homestay realllly bad.
Term: Fall 2008
Ethnicity: Hmong (I took a years worth of Korean in 10 weeks..it pretty much sucks now. I only know the basics but I'm going to brush up this summer after semester ends.)

My whole purpose of going to Korea is so that I can learn the language it not to a great extent then at least well to the point that I can have simple conversations in Korean. So I'll just be taking classes in Korean language, grammar, and culture. Yay, I'm excited. Oh yeah, and i'm gonna try to get into the buddy program so i can get to know some natives. I'm a bit worried about how nationalistic Koreans are though.. I feel like ...really scared to say something in case they may take offense..

Hi there~ I'm also going to yonsei fall 2008! yay for us

program: UC EAP (UCR)
Housing: I-House
Term: Fall 2008
Ethnicity: Chinese

I'm going for the same reason as you, unlike most people that go there to party . I'm taking Korean Five right now at ucr. Though my writing isn't that bad, my speaking sucks to the extreme. I'm definitely going to be joining their buddy program. hahaha~ Dude I'm so happy now that I know someone who is going for fall

Also to all that are looking into studying abroad in korea 08-09 please check out my thread on soompi~

*cough* there's a whole (long) thread dedicated to study abroad in korea, that mostly talks about yonsei university....*cough*

kitty_N & lilaznhunnie, I'm probably going in Fall 2008 too!
It's nice to know someone who's going too because I'm pretty nervous and still in dilemma.
So hopefully we can keep in contact?

I'm going to also learn more about the language, experience the culture.. and if possible, take courses that are relevant to my major.
I'm really hoping to make my uni experience meaningful

Program: uc eap (uc san diego)
Housing: Either in I-house, or whatever the other option was. I think they said they would randomly choose people to go in either of the options.
Term: summer 08 and I'm goin to be extending to fall 08 too.
ethnicity: chinese

wahhh! i'm really excited to go study abroad. i want to teach english there after i graduate, so studying abroad will give me a good opportunity to see how the living is. i took a year of korean in college..but i don't really know how adequate i am. i can do reading pretty well..but i think the hardest part is understanding sumone when they speak. i can think of words and phrases to make a sentence, but understanding is the hardest part.

^ yeah. Same here. even though I took korean in college, my command of the language is questionable.

Anyone going to be at the 2008 Summer Special Program?

how much does it cost??

and for those who went how much of your korean speaking, writing, and understanding abilties improve?

sorry so how long is it?

can you be from a community college to go?

sorry so many questions (:

thank you.