Meilinda Florensiana
Faculty of Law and Communication 2014
Spring Semester Global Korean Scholarship’s ScholarAt Soongsil University, Korea
When I arrived at South Korea, I saw huge differences between Indonesia and South Korea, it was not about the language even it is, but it is about the huge gap between their facilities and technology with Indonesia; even for something simple about their gesture when greeting each other. It made me thought a lot of things. Will I survive in this developed country? Will I be able to follow lecturing system in my soon to be university? Will I get used with their culture? And another “will” keep came on my mind.As time goes by, it feels like I was overreacted. Because in reality, I have a good time here and my Korean Professor also friends help me a lot to adapt with Korean culture and customs. They teach me how to speak in the polite way and of course helping me to improve my Hangeul (Korean Language). On the other words, I could say that the Korean help me much to adapt faster with their own culture and customs, since they knew better about it.My relations with the Korean community getting easier time by time, since I can make a simple conversation with them in Hangeul, I also found out that they are more discipline than Indonesian. It’s proven in my college daily life, in my home university I usually came late to the class because I still have 15 minutes dispensation, but here, I attend the class 15 – 20 minutes earlier. I have to attend the class earlier because even the Professor will come to the class 30 minutes before the class started, and if you late, you can not join the class because there is no dispensation. My college daily life here a little bit different with my home university, not only about my attendance in class, but also about the lecturing system. Here I learnt how to lead not only my classmate and Professor from my major, like I did in Indonesia, to understand my presentation, but also other students and Professor from different major. I have to lead a presentation not only from my major (Global Law) point of view but combine it with economic, technology, engineering and other point of view in one course. In the beginning, it feels really hard for me, since I’ve never studied some of them, but I have to study all of them now. My purposes are not only to accomplish the class project and get good grade but also to enrich my knowledge about international development.Being an exchange student doesn’t mean that all I have to do is study, right? I also made friends with other exchange students. We are from different country, background, and of course different culture, but it doesn’t stop us to be friends. We found out our different background made our friendship more interesting. We respect each other, study together, and even spent our weekend together to enjoy our time here. One thing I learnt from my interactions with other exchange students here is never make boundaries between you and other exchange students, once you do, you will never see the goodness they offers for you.So, became an exchange students will give you a lot of benefits such as another international experience, foreigner friends, cultural experiences, and enrich your knowledge about another major and yours.
