What Makes HUFSans Study Abroad?
Gayeon Lee
I have five close girl friends in HUFS. They are 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 thinking of taking 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. The most economical one is exchange student program. Exchange students do not pay the tuition fee at the counterpart university, so they only pay the tuition 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 fee 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 Arabian improved more during the first three months in Tunisia than the past three years in Korea. This example clearly shows why students majoring in foreign language decide to go 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 fluency in a foreign language, you need to learn its culture and more significantly to be in the country. By experiencing different cultures from their 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 an 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 where equal rights are highly respected.
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. There are three main reasons why students, especially HUFSans, decide to study overseas; 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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