South Korea: Katalina Lee
Program: Korea University Exchange, Spring
Katalina’s Major: English
What did you learn about yourself or the world because of your experience?
I am an English-Creative Writing major, and all my life, I had aspired to become an editor for a publishing company. Not once did that aspiration change until I studied abroad. Although this is cheesy, once you go out and see the world, visit another country, you truly do come back more “worldly” and wiser. I had begun to question my dreams for the future–do I even see myself living in the US anymore? What occupation opens up travel as a possibility? I am a fourth year student, and I was supposed to graduate Spring 2024. However, after my program ended, I added on a TESOL (Teaching English as a Second Language) certificate onto my degree, which has added an extra semester onto my college career. It was a difficult and big new step into my future, but I knew that it was worth to invest a little more extra time into university if teaching English abroad was something I would like to potentially do. I learned so many new things about myself and it opened many doors for me.
The bad things truly weren’t so bad because everything else just went so well. So don’t worry too much, just live in the moment and don’t let those things distract you from what you should be experiencing.
How did your identities impact your experience? What advice would you give to students with similar identities who are considering a similar experience?
While I am Hmong and am still an outsider in Korean society, even being surrounded by Asian people was such a strange experience. It was the white people that stood out for once, not me. It was also equally as frustrating because the Hmong ethnicity is not well-known, so when I would try to explain it to people, especially Koreans, it was quite difficult. I was with my friends who were getting their ears pierced, and the clerk asked me, “Are you Japanese? You are so pretty,” but she spoke minimal English and I spoke minimal Korean. In the end, all I could say was that I was 태국 사람–Thai, even though I’m not. It was frustrating to not know the correct words to express my identity, and in the end, it all comes back to studying Korean and being comfortable and confident in your ethnicity.
What challenges or barriers did you face as you prepared to go abroad and/or during your time abroad? How did you work through them?
When I arrived to Korea, many things did not work out. My debit card didn’t work, my phone carrier refused to unlock my phone, and I was on Wi-Fi the entire time abroad. Even when I got my debit card fixed, it still did not work at ATMs. Thankfully, I had lovely friends who I could Venmo and Paypal, but it was a struggle, especially without data. South Korea has many ways to get free Wi-Fi, like the subway stations, busses, and cafes, so it could have been worse, but having it all happen all at once made it feel like nothing was working out. However, once I sort of accepted that that’s what was how it needed to be, I was able to indulge myself in cultural aspects of Korea that uplifted my experience. Even now when I look back at everything, even the bad things truly weren’t so bad because everything else just went so well. So don’t worry too much, just live in the moment and don’t let those things distract you from what you should be experiencing.