About

Well hello there! My name is Frans, I'm 19 and from the Netherlands. Starting August 26, 2014, I will be on exchange for one semester at Yonsei University in Seoul, South-Korea. With this blog, I am going to write about my experience of going on exchange, discoveries in South-Korea(n culture), and my process of learning the Korean language. 

The purpose of this blog is to share with those who are interested in my exchange, whether they're friends or family, or when they will be going on exchange to Yonsei too. I hope to provide some useful information and things I noticed while going on exchange.

About me

As I said in the introduction, I'm 19 and I am currently in my third year of my bachelor of European Studies. I study at the Hague University of Applied Science. My study focuses on European politics, economics and cultural studies; however, it is quite a broad bachelor program, in a sense that it teaches us to use skills that are useful anywhere in the world (such as doing research, intercultural communication and presentation skills). I majored in business courses, mainly focusing on marketing, export and strategic management. My main interest lays with languages and marketing.

Why Yonsei
It may have been one of the first weeks at the Hague University when I found out there is a possibility to go on exchange to Asia. Since it is such a great opportunity, I started doing research in an early stage and found out South-Korea was one of the possibilities. I sort of forgot about the exchange during my first semester of my first year, however at the start of semester 2 I started orienting a bit more. However, it wasn't until the first semester of year 2 that we had to really orient and really start making hard choices for where we wanted to go on exchange. Then I just knew it for sure, South-Korea was my goal.

You might wonder why someone doing European Studies is going to Asia. It is exactly the reason WHY I am going on exchange to South-Korea. For starters, the amount of trade between the European Union (the Netherlands in particular) and South-Korea is increasing, offering great opportunities for a future career. Second, South-Korea is a highly developed country with great technological development and an increasing and strong economy. History and the current political situation also played a part in my choice of South-Korea, since it hasn't been too long ago since the Korean War, which is a war I hope I will learn more about during my exchange.

To conclude, I hope whoever reads this blog will find useful information for their exchange, as it is quite a big step in your educational career. I personally cannot believe I will be flying out to Seoul in less than a month.. but I really cannot wait.