What Makes HUFSans Study Abroad?
Gayeon Lee
I have five close girl friends in HUFS. They are all Koreans but all of them are abroad. Three of them are in Tunisia, studying Arabian language, one in Germany, and the other one in China. The school offers various kinds of study-abroad programs and a lot of students are leaving this country every year to study foreign language and its culture. I am also planning to take an English linguistics course in the United Kingdom next year. Then why so many students are studying abroad?
For a start, study-abroad programs in HUFS are economical. There are basically two kinds of exchange programs; Exchange student program and 7+1 semester program are those. First and the most economical one is the exchange student program. It offers a full scholarship at the counterpart university, so the student only pays his or her tuition fees at HUFS. The other one is 7+1 semester program, which provides students with a broader opportunity to study abroad. The way you pay the tuition is exactly the opposite of the exchange student scholarship. Students studying abroad pay the tuition at the foreign college and not at HUFS. This is especially cost-effective when the counterpart college's tuition fee is low such as those in Germany.
Most of the students decide to study abroad because in that way, you can improve the language ability in a minimum period of time. Unlike English, which is a quite common second language, limited number of people is learning foreign languages like Arabian, Turkish, and Swedish in Korea. This means you have little access to those languages, which makes it hard to achieve the ideal language ability. In order to learn a language, surrounding environment is as important as the student's will to master one. One of my close friends recently studying in Tunisia states that her language improved more during the first three months in Tunisia than the past three years in Korea. This example clearly shows why students majoring in modern languages decide to study abroad.
Studying abroad also has a benefit of developing oneself as a better person. People say that it is now a planet of globalization but if you want to acquire a foreign language and learn its culture thoroughly, you need to be in the country. By experiencing different cultures from his or her own, students can broaden and enrich the way they see the world. For example when I was in high school, we had a discussion about the solutions of decreasing birthrate. While we were repeating the same words, one of my classmates who had lived in Norway came up with an idea to provide a obligatory maternity leave to both man and woman—so it's parental leave—as the present woman-only maternity leave has a side effect that companies prefer male to female. His idea impressed the whole classmates and he wouldn't have such an idea at his age if he didn't experience the culture in which equal rights is more respected than Korea.
Many friends of my age are currently studying overseas or at least planning to apply for the exchange student scholarship. Even I, too, decided to study abroad and the school itself is full of exchange students from all over the world. There are three main reasons why students, especially HUFSans, decide to study overseas; HUFSans study abroad because the school provides cost effective programs, it is a good change to improve their language ability, and they can broaden their view of life.
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