Exchange Report

For the preparation of my semesters abroad and especially for the application I started by reading the provided exchange reports. The personal opinion of recent student was very helpful. With this information I prepared my list of possible universities. I only chose universities that allowed my GPA and had criteria I would be able to fullfill. Additionally I took a look at the excel sheet from the application of the past years, that gave a good overview of how the demand of each university was. I payed attention that I would for sure choose some where the chances would be rather high to get in.

I lived in the student housing on campus. The application and especially the final allocation of it was very late (around end of July/beginning of August), when looking at the early start of the semester end of August. I did look at other options on airbnb, but somehow had the gut feeling that I would get a place in the dorms. If you don't get one (its tough to get in there) I would recommend staying in the area of Nakseondae or Seoul National University Station. From the places you can easily walk to university and dont have to take the busy traffic. Seoul University campus is a bit outside of the city, but located in a beautiful nature area. You can go on hikes and are surrounded by mountains. I lived in the global dorm, paid 150€ per month and shared a room with another girl from korea. For the period of 4 month it was a nice experience and especially looking at the price definitely totally fine, but you still have to keep in mind, that you don't have any personal space and share ONE room. Throughout my whole semester I felt super safe, as there are cameras everywhere and no one does any harm. I left the house in the dark to go for walks and never felt unsafe. Things to keep in mind when you live in the dorms and thereby not in the city is that going out at night is quite tough. The train doesn't drive after 12 pm so you need to take a cap home. Additionally it was quite challenging to live with another person having totally different ways to live. My roommate came home very late and slept in, being the complete opposite of me. As I mentioned for 4 month it was super fine but just to keep in mind. Another important thing is that you need a korean bank account to pay rent, so you need to go to a bank there. For the process before moving in you need to submit original documents of the masern impfung and some Röntgen. I didnt know about that and was quite stressed because I needed to provide these documents very fast.

I really loved studying at SNU. The courses were extremely interesting and you could really feel that you have been at the one of the best universities in Asia. I have to say I have learned a lot more than at WU and also content like excel, python, etc. which I honestly never learned before. BUT the lectures were quite heavy workload and you really needed to prepare. There were Midterm and final exam plus homeworks. Even tough I really needed to do something and didnt had that much freetime I loved it. But attention curved grading system so very competitive.

Very safe because of cameras everywhere. I had no kitchen in the dorm so I ate outside. The food is really nice and especially the 1000 KRW cantine (60 cent) was amazing. I loved the food and eating out alone is very usual in korea, which made it very easy. The PT is super easy in seoul, just buy a T-money card and refill it. i joined the swimming club, which was nice. But I mostly worked out in my room with a pilates mat I ordered at Coupang (love that website) I didnt like the buddy programm but would still recommend joining and giving a try

I loved experiencing the culture, going on the fleamarket, eating local food and visting every district. One of my highlights was to do a bicycle tour through the country from Seoul to Busan, its like 150 km a day for 5 days and you see the most amazing landscapes. And do all the trips: Japan, China, etc. Sometimes i wasnt sure regarding learning, but thankfully I did the trips to shanghai, beijing, while others studied. And in the end I still managed everything with university and got good grades.