More Information About My Trip

Well, it's finals week in spring quarter of my junior year...where did the time go?  I am nearing the one-month mark before I leave for Seoul and I am beginning to feel the pressure to finish crossing things off my preparations checklist.  There are so many weird things to remember...like electrical adapters, telling my bank that I'll be in South Korea so it doesn't cancel my credit card for suspicious activity (ha!) and getting vaccines (something I am not looking forward to).  How will I ever remember to do everything before I leave?  

At one of my orientation meetings, an ONU student who attended this program last summer said she packed everything she thought she'd need, took out half, and it still ended up being too much!  As a chronic over-packer, maybe I should try this and take out 2/3s of what I pack.  I want to have plenty of room in my suitcase for souvenirs! 

While I'm in Seoul, I will take two classes at Hanyang University.  Specifically, I am enrolled in International Marketing and Contemporary Korean Society.  I wanted to take Korean Language, but there was a time conflict with the International Marketing class, so I am pretty bummed about that.  Hopefully, I will pick up plenty of Korean just from living in Seoul, though.  If anything, I have many Korean friends at ONU who have expressed interest in helping me learn some :).

Undoubtedly, I am SUPER excited to leave.  I have never done anything so extremely "independent" before, so this is a huge step for me.  I think the hardest part of the trip will be missing my core-group of people I love in the U.S. - my family and friends.  I have even started to have anxiety at night about leaving!  I won't have a phone (though I will have Skype, but the connection may not be the greatest)!  This trip will be the longest period of time I will go without texting since I've had a cell phone.  It'll be such an adjustment, but I think it will be great for me.  Maybe it will help me partially break my addiction to my cell phone.  This is how I hope to approach problems or difficulties I stumble upon - with a more optimistic, "bigger-picture" perception.  On a deeper level, I hope this experience will help me to become a more independent person.  I want to rely less on other people and more on myself.  Sure, it may be frustrating from time to time.  I KNOW I'll be homesick.  But ultimately, I know I will look back and be proud of myself for taking such a leap.

On a completely unrelated note, I believe ONU has provided a substantial amount of assistance in terms of preparation/orientation for this trip.  Dede Shine, the ONU coordinator for the Hanyang program, told us that she believes it is important for us to figure out a lot of the preparation on our own so we can truly learn international travel from all angles.  "Sure, things will go wrong.  Always," she said.  Road blocks are unavoidable.  Mistakes will happen, but it's all a part of the process.  I think this will also be very difficult for me, but invaluable in the long run.  I live much of my life according to a rigid schedule and when things go wrong I get stressed out.  These problems that I will face, like getting lost in Seoul, walking into the wrong classroom, paying a restaurant bill incorrectly, etc, will help me chill out a little.  Currently, I'm trying not to stress over the fact that my Study Abroad Request Form is lost between the A&S dean's office and Academic Affairs.  It has to be somewhere!  

Orientation to South Korea

Hi, everyone!  I wanted to begin this blog prior to leaving for South Korea on June 22nd in order to document my thoughts and preparation process.  I have never really been abroad before, if I don't include the 2-4 hours I spent in Jamaica, the Cayman Islands, and Cozumel on a cruise when I was, like, 10-years old.  


Applying for the Hanyang Fellowship was a bold step for me.  Essentially, I thank Dr. Kathryn Cowles for forwarding me the email about the fellowship and urging me to apply.  Otherwise, it is likely that this opportunity would have passed me by and I'd be stuck in Ohio all summer (which isn't a terrible thing, exactly, but this trip is way cooler).  Shortly after writing/submitting a ten-ish page essay for the fellowship application, I found myself a recipient of the Hanyang Fellowship.  Simple as that!


In winter quarter, I did an extensive project on internationalization on the American university campus, focusing primarily on ONU.  Our world is constantly and rapidly changing and it is important to have a global perspective that replaces out-modeled, patronizing views of places beyond American borders.  Surely, spending a month in a culture other than my own will help shape my view of the world.  I've heard from many people that I will likely catch  "the travel bug" after one trip abroad.  As long as I don't decide to live in Seoul for the rest of my life, I think my parents will be okay with that ;).  Ultimately, I'd like to document the highs, lows, and many discoveries I will experience in South Korea in order to formulate methods to stimulate a greater study-abroad interest at ONU.    


In detailing my experiences in Seoul, I hope to discover valuable solutions that facilitate internationalization on the American university campus. Globalization and internationalization are ambiguous, intimidating terms to many Americans. What they do not refer to is the complete disintegration of the American way. Instead, they denote growing interconnectedness and interdependence among nations through rapidly evolving technology, economy, culture, and politics. In a sense, the world is getting “smaller"; international perspective is becoming an increasingly important resource for American college students.