I went to a study abroad fair feeling like I was already behind

Walking into the exhibition hall with way too many pamphlets

I remember walking into the COEX convention center for one of those big study abroad fairs. It felt like everyone else in the room had a clear plan, probably because they had their parents or a well-prepared consultant trailing behind them. I was there by myself, mostly because I kept hearing that 3 months of language school in Australia was a good way to test the waters before committing to a full degree. The air inside was freezing, and the sheer volume of glossy brochures made me feel like I was holding a stack of papers I didn’t actually know how to read. I stopped by a booth for a university in Brisbane, and the person there looked at me like I was a genuine prospect, which honestly stressed me out more than the lukewarm coffee I’d been carrying around for an hour.

The reality of trying to figure out Australian visas

I’d spent weeks looking up requirements for a working holiday visa online, but talking to people face-to-face made the whole thing feel much more bureaucratic and heavy. One guy told me that the administrative fees alone would probably set me back about 600,000 to 800,000 KRW just to get the initial paperwork moving, provided I didn’t make any silly mistakes on the application forms. That sounded like a lot of money for a process that mostly involved staring at a government website. I remember thinking about how much easier it would have been if there were just one clear, non-commercial list of things to bring, but every booth wanted me to sign up for their specific student placement package.

Searching for a way out of the test prep cycle

I had spent nearly a year at a SAT academy in Bundang back when I thought I was aiming for US schools, and the lingering exhaustion from that time made me hesitant to jump back into another intense academic environment. There’s something about those classrooms—the smell of old paper and the constant ticking of the clock—that makes you feel like your entire future depends on a single score. At the fair, I avoided the booths that emphasized high-pressure testing because I just couldn’t stomach the idea of another year of mock exams. I ended up lingering by a stand that was promoting vocational paths instead, which felt slightly more grounded, though I couldn’t tell if that was actually a better decision or if I was just being lazy.

Conversations that never really went anywhere

There was a moment where I sat down with a representative from a UK university who had flown in specifically for the event. She was very polite, spoke perfect English, and told me that my background wouldn’t be a dealbreaker for the program I was interested in. It felt nice to hear that, but at the same time, I knew she was being paid to make everyone feel like a viable candidate. I ended up just nodding along and taking her business card, which I’m pretty sure I lost somewhere in the back of my car two days later. The conversation left me feeling like I had gotten exactly what I needed—some validation—but also left me with more questions about the actual cost of living in a place like London or Melbourne versus the smaller regional cities.

The lingering uncertainty of the next step

By the time I left, the sun was already starting to set, and the streetlights were flickering on. I stood on the sidewalk for a while, wondering if I was actually going to do any of this or if I had just spent my Saturday afternoon collecting colorful booklets to convince myself I was productive. There is a weird kind of comfort in just browsing these fairs, pretending that the decision is still far off. I still don’t know if I’m actually going to apply for the language program or if I’m just going to keep working where I am for another six months. The whole experience didn’t really ‘solve’ anything, but it did make the idea of leaving feel like something that could actually happen if I ever really decided to pull the trigger.