Details

• Republic of Korea
• BaWiSo-23
• Undergraduate
• SoSe 2026
• Time spent at the partner university: 4 months
• Contact: Login to see contact information

1. Preparation

Before you leave on your exchange, make sure you have an overview of the paperwork required by both Yonsei and WU, for example I filed one of the learning agreement proposals before I left, simply based on the course overview of the previous year and then adapted it based on WUs response. Once I had enrolled in my courses I sent in the new revised learning agreement and got my courses approved. Yonsei contacts you with information relatively late in the process, emails with important information start coming in about one month before the start of the semester (aside from dorm enrollment, for my spring semester they sent information about that in late november/early december). Details regarding orientation and course registration drop about a month before the semester starts though. Be aware that your visa only allows you to be in the country for a certain amount of time, so try to schedule your flight wherein you arrive with enough time to get acclimatised, however if you plan on travelling around Korea afterwards, keep the maximum amount of days, you are allowed to stay in mind. Most people arrived on the move in day of the dorms, when they were staying on campus. When travelling to Seoul, several airlines offer flights, depending on your airport of origin. However, Airlines like Turkish Airlines offer student discounts and extra luggage which might come in handy depending on how much luggage you might have. From the airport, there are several ways to get to the University (if you are staying in the dorms, however the information might be useful regardless of where you live). First option is the limousine busses, which leave from both terminals and you can buy tickets at ticket counters in the airport or pay by cash, at the time of writing this, the fare cost 17000won, which is equivalent to about 9-10 Euros. The journey from the airport to the city takes about one hour (from terminal 2 it takes 2), so this option is the most convenient and cheapest, however taxis do exist as does uber and kakao taxi. You could also use public transport however that does take longer and you have to switch your mode of transport. For the spring semester, it was surprisingly cold for the first two months, so winter wardrobe might be helpful especially as it does also get windy. However, by mid April/May it does also get very sunny and hot. Fortunately, as Korea has the same outlets as Austria, you do not have to bring an adapter. And there is access to charging in a lot of public places too. Most cafes, restaurants and bars have either outlets or charging stations and you can charge your electronics on busses too. It is helpful to have a Korean phone number, as many services are only provided to Korean phone numbers, such as deliveries and subscriptions to certain services and maps (Naver). You could arrive with an e sim and then change it later on, however make sure, your phone provider has not locked your phone. There is public free wifi available on busses and the subway, and in most public spaces too, but having data is an upside. During orientation the university provided a lot of information compiled in a folder too, so that was really helpful and provided an overview and contacts for important questions.

2. Accommodation

There is on campus accommodation provided by the university, either the Global House or the International House, however there are strict guidelines that need to be followed, no non-dorm students are allowed on the premises. Staying in the dorm is useful to meet people and they do have events and get togethers, however, for the Global House they only provide shared rooms. The dorms are situated on campus, though as the campus is vast and hilly it might still take you some time to get to class. There is a lane with convenience stores, and some food options in the basement of the dorms too as well as a gym. In the area of the dorms there are several cheap food options as well. If you decide against staying on campus, I would still recommend staying in the area of Sinchon, which is about a 10-20 min walk to the main gate of the campus depending on where you are staying. Sinchon has lots of international students too, cafes and restaurants and is close to Hongdae the party neighbourhood. In general I would recommend, staying close to either a subway station (sinchon has two, the main one being on line 2, which goes all around Seoul) or a bus stop to get around easily as the city is very large and it does take some time to get to places. As long as you live close to transportation hubs and dont mind a ride to uni, you could pretty much live anywhere. So if you want to stay in an area closer to the city and value the experience of seoul over the university campus experience, Mapo is also a beautiful area and a little bit more quiet.

3. Academic life at host university

The campus is huge so it takes a while to get from A to B, which is also important to consider when choosing your classes because in the worst case you have 10 minutes to get from one end to the other. There is a shuttle bus too which takes you from the commons all the way up though. The campus facilities have pretty much everything you might need, in the student union buidling, there are three cafeterias (the Korean, Chinese and Western cafeterias), as well as a convenience store, an optician, a postoffice and bookstore, a photobooth and a doctors office which provides cheap and fast services if you are sick, they also help you find specialists if needed. So if you are sick I would recommend going there over Severance Hospital, you dont need an appointment. There are more food options available in the Commons from Starbucks, and a Burrito place to bakeries which are nice to study too. The two libraries have plenty of space to study as well and there is a cafe on the roof of samsung library which has a nice view of the campus. Furthermore the library, has music, recording and computer rooms as well. People take their studies seriously, so during exam week and leading up to it, similarly to WU it does get pretty crowded in the library. They use a pre booked seat system which u need an app for but they explain this during orientation too. The classes I took were from UIC which included a mix of both full time international and full time Korean students. The classes were similar to WU classes there were lecture parts as well as discussions. Depending on the teacher the allocation between the two differed. The students were very prepared and took part in the classes diligently. For courses there are specific ones that are only open to exchange students, which are marked as such in the course registration process as IEE at the start of the course code. The classes are supposedly easier as professors are aware of the fact that we are exchange students, however not all of them can be transferred to WU, so keep that in mind when choosing the classes. Other classes are open to exchange students too, and are marked as such. This is explained in detail in the email you will receive prior to registration. As the semester starts you can still drop and add classes, if you want to and there is availability. So during the first week, go to the classes and take the time to consider if you are interested as well as willing to put up with the work load. If you are not studying business administrations, the university has a wide range of classes which can be transferred (based on their syllabus, but check with the WU office first). I took this opportunity to take classes adjacent to the ones I had been taking at WU and expand my horizon. There are also interesting cross over classes provided by different departments.

5. Every day life in the host country

Public transport is great. There are subways and busses as well as bikes. The busses are coordinated by color, so red busses get you to near by cities (like Suwon for the starfield library e.g.), blue busses get you from one end of the city to the other and have longer distances, smaller green busses mostly stay within neighbourhoods. And then the airport limousine gets you to the airport. You can use public transport either with a Tmoney card or a climate card, depending on how much you think you will be using it. The climate card makes more sense, when you are travelling more. The average fare for a journey is about 1500 won so ca. 1,2€. Be careful though, both types of card require cash to top up and can be bought and topped up either at the stations or in convenience stores (7/11 or GS25 e.g.). Seoul is pretty safe, there are cameras everywhere which increases safety. You can leave your stuff unattended in cafes, bars and restaurants as well as in parks. When going out, be aware though that roofies are an occurrance especially in Hongdae and Itaewon, so just keep that in mind and an eye on your drinks. Yonsei has many student clubs, three specific ones for exchange semester students, where you can easily join and they plan events. General Yonsei clubs are also open to exchange students, however that does sometimes come with the language barrier. During the spring semester Yonsei held Akaraka which is a yearly festival with famous artists performing, however, that is primarily open to fulltime students. Other than that there are cheering events, sport games such as baseball and American football matches.

6. Testimonial

I did not live on campus, and while that was sometimes exhausting in terms of commute, I did love to get to know other parts of the city and experience Seoul aside from the university context. There are so many cool corners to explore, even though it does take a bit to get there. The 30mins it takes to get around in Vienna, are like an hour to one hour and 30 mins in Seoul but don't be deterred by that. The classes are very interesting too, I chose some that had a specific focus on the Korean/East Asian context, so I added knew valuable experiences to my repertoire. Korean students are a little shy, but don't hesitate to approach them, I made some great friends here.