With the start of a new academic semester, the spring-summer exchange student from Denmark, Julie Rosengren reflects on her study abroad experience in KDI School and Korea overall: “Leaving Denmark for a 5 months exchange stay in Korea in the middle of the pandemic I did not expect much besides getting insight in the Korean culture and hopefully meeting some nice people, but as it turned out I got way more than that.

Luckily, KDIS is a unique place with students from all over the world who are open-minded, loving, funny and sweet people and each of them is a huge part of my KDIS experience. Getting to learn all of their life histories and circumstances taught me so much about life, love and culture, and I admire each of them. Not only are the students at KDIS good friends who look out for each other as a family, but all of them are also hardworking students, who put a lot of effort in doing good in school. I myself also experience quite a different school system and classes than I am used to in Denmark, but I learned a lot both professionally and culture wise. 

Honestly, I ended up taking six courses in the spring semester focusing on development policy which I have a huge interest in. Studying development policy at KDIS is quite nice as you also get to talk with people who are actually living in developing countries and can tell you about first-hand experiences. That would never have happened if I had stayed in Denmark, and to be honest I think I learned just as much from the students as I did in class. 

But my stay in Korea was not only about school I also really enjoyed traveling around Korea and took every possible opportunity to get some new travel experiences: exploring new areas of Seoul, drinking coffee at my favorite theme cafés, chilling at the beach in Busan or Sokcho, hiking in the Seoraksan and Bukhansan national parks and climbing Hallasan, singing karaoke, visiting DMZ, admiring beautiful Korean temples and palaces, partying in my favorites bar and clubs, eating delicious street food, getting lost in Jeonju Hanok Village, skiing during holiday in Pyeongchang, eating BBQ, driving around Jeju, falling in love with cherry blossoms, exploring Gamcheon culture village is just a small sample of the amazing experiences I have had. 

And the experiences just got better because I did it with amazing people from KDI School.

I am grateful for my time in Korea and hopefully I will get to see some of my friends from KDIS again sometime soon.