By jlee4946
Something I've realized in Korea is that yes, I am actually here for school.
Being in a new place for such a short amount of time, I feel like there is a lot of pressure. Not only to focus on academics but also making new friends, trying new things, discovering new places, getting to know your "new home" country, something along the lines of trying to make each weekend worth it.
But ultimately, we are at school with classes to take and exams to prepare for.
The exam season is similar to that at GW, where most classes have a midterm and final with homework and assignments and quizzes all in between. Midterm season was at its peak around the 3rd and 4th week of October where it was impossible to find a seat at a cafe to study. An interesting thing to note though was that during the peak of exams, professors typically cancel the class before the exam. So if you have a Monday & Wednesday class with an exam on Wednesday, the Monday class would be cancelled. Maybe this is common practice at GW as well for some, but it was a new concept for me!
Another thing I found interesting was how in the library, if you want to take a study break and leave to get some food, you can trust that no one will take your stuff even if you leave your laptop open and your notes astray. Even if you leave for over an hour, your stuff will remain as you left it. I guess people really respect the mutual suffering they're going through.
Additionally, a couple of my Korean friends have this tactic of over-signing up for classes and take all these classes (like 20+ credits) until the midterm, then choosing which midterms to take and then dropping a couple classes to get to ~15 credits since the deadline to drop is the end of October. I'm not sure whether that's worth it or not since for 2 months you need to do the work for 20+ credits, but hey, food for thought.
With finals coming up in about a month, I wish there was a way to reserve a seat at cafes to study but alas, it is but a waiting game. I hope midterms went well for everyone and hwaiting (화이팅: a word of encouragement commonly used in Korea meaning something along the lines of, "Let's do it!") for finals!