Our Year Abroad !

It has been a while since we've updated this blog and a lot has happened since then. Let's just say our experience in Korea definitely influenced our future goals and now we're on a mission to get back! We're making this post because we finally summed up our year abroad in about 4 minutes. Our follow on project for the Gilman scholarship was running this blog for the duration of our stay in Korea  and showing students the ups and downs of living in a foreign country as well as being informative to potential study abroad students and finally creating a video of our whole journey. We would have loved to have added more footage, but we tried to include as much as possible and we really liked the result. This video not only features our experience, but the experiences of some of our peers as well. Making the decision to study abroad can open a world of possibilities and we hope that our blog and this video encourage other students to make that important decision to change their lives just like we did. We hope you enjoy it! ^-^

North Korea

Recently the situation between North and South Korea has been escalating and this has caused everybody back home to worry for those of currently abroad in Korea. We've received many emails from family, friends, professors, our study abroad department and so on, and so we thought it was important to create a post regarding the situation at the moment.

We've noticed that the news back home has been bombarding everyone with overly exaggerated stories of the situation. On a daily basis we receive emails from many people with these news stories written in a way that make the situation seem worse than it actually is! In South Korea life is going on as usual and it seems that South Koreans are immune to North Korea's recent actions and statements. Many of our Korean friends and professors have been very open about their feelings towards the current situation and have admitted that they are not worried whatsoever. This is due to the fact that this is nothing new to the Korean peninsula and both Korea's have been in dispute since the end of the Korean war (which has never technically been over.) As a result the majority of us foreigners residing in Korea at the moment feel the same way and we're going about our days normally, but we do want to mention that even though we feel safe we are taking precautions in case anything is to occur and we have not completely dismissed the situation. 

We believe that for anyone studying abroad there are always many risks that we must be prepared for and in our case at the moment it's political unrest. There are many ways of taking precautions and you can do this way before you leave to your destination!
 The first thing we did was sign up to Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP). It is a free service for U.S. citizens traveling or living abroad and by entering information about your trip it allows the State Department to be of greater assistance in case of an emergency as well as providing you with information sent by email and other sources from your nearest embassy. For us this has been the best thing we did before coming!  Receiving daily emails about the situation has really kept us informed of how the situation is developing or if there are any precautions we should take.
Here is a link to the website: https://step.state.gov/step/
The next thing we did was create an account with International SOS which provide medical assistance,  international insurance and security services. We created this account because our university has a membership with them, so it would be good to find out if your university does  too or look for similar options!
Thirdly, once you are in the country it is always a good idea to make copies of all your paperwork and this includes passport, visa, insurance, any legal document of importance that could be used in case an accident occurs as well as giving your friends and family an address, and number where they can contact you at all times.
Lastly, KNOW WHERE YOUR NEAREST EMBASSY IS LOCATED. It is so important to know where your embassy is located because if something does occur the first thing you want to do is go to your embassy!  

Aside from this, with everything going on we managed to take a trip to the JSA !  I will definitely post about it later.