I thought going abroad would be easier than finding a decent apartment in Seoul

The initial idea of leaving

I remember sitting in the student lounge during my second year, looking at a flyer about exchange programs. It wasn’t even a prestigious school, just a mid-sized one in the provinces. At the time, I was obsessed with the idea that my life was stuck in a loop of commuting and part-time jobs. I had heard stories about people coming back from places like Daegu after a six-month stint as an exchange student, talking about how they picked up the local dialect and felt like they had discovered a whole new world. I kept thinking that if they could manage a different city in Korea, maybe I could handle a different country entirely. I wasn’t looking for a life-changing epiphany or a career boost; I just wanted to be somewhere where nobody knew my name or my academic history.

The messy application process

When I finally started the paperwork, the reality of ‘international exchange’ hit me pretty hard. It wasn’t just about picking a country I liked. It was about GPA, language proficiency tests, and these weirdly specific interviews where you have to act like you’re going to represent your home country with dignity. I spent weeks stressing over a motivation letter that felt completely fake, trying to sound like a motivated global citizen when, in truth, I just wanted to eat foreign food and walk down streets that didn’t look like the ones I grew up in. The costs kept creeping up, too. Between visa fees, health insurance, and the plane ticket, I was staring at a bill that exceeded 3,000 dollars before I even packed a single bag. It’s funny how everyone talks about the ‘experience,’ but nobody highlights the sheer amount of administrative friction you have to push through before you get to the fun part.

Why I stayed uncertain after landing

Once I arrived, it didn’t feel like a movie. The first week was just a blur of fighting with the local internet provider and trying to figure out which grocery store didn’t charge a premium for basic vegetables. I lived in a small room that cost about 800 euros a month, which was a huge chunk of my budget. I found myself comparing it to my friend’s experience in the Netherlands, where the universities seemed so integrated with the industry that it felt like an internship from day one. I, on the other hand, was just struggling to find the right classroom in a building that seemed older than my own country. There was a lingering doubt, a constant hum in the back of my head asking, ‘Is this actually going to help me, or am I just burning savings for a change of scenery?’

The difference between expectations and reality

I think I misunderstood the social aspect entirely. I expected to instantly bond with other exchange students, forming a tight-knit circle of global friends. Instead, I mostly spent time with people who were just as lost and confused as I was. We shared stories about our home universities, complaining about the curriculum or the tuition, which sounded like a universal language. It wasn’t glamorous. Some days, I spent hours just sitting in a cafe trying to decipher a reading assignment that would have taken me twenty minutes in Korean. The ‘global competitiveness’ that the brochure promised felt like a distant concept while I was scrubbing dishes in a tiny shared kitchen.

Trying to make sense of the time spent

I look back at those photos now and it’s hard to reconcile the person I was then with the one I am now. I don’t feel ‘transformed.’ I don’t feel like I gained some secret advantage over my peers who stayed behind and did internships in Seoul. Sometimes I think about the money I spent and wonder if it was worth it. Was it worth the stress? Maybe. I still hold onto the feeling of walking alone in an unfamiliar neighborhood without a set destination. That part was peaceful. But the rest of it? The frustration with bureaucracies and the loneliness in the middle of a crowd? That stayed with me, even months after I returned. I don’t have a tidy summary or a list of lessons. I just have a collection of memories that don’t quite fit together into a cohesive success story.